Latest / Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections / Networking Unleashed: S1E96 An Interview with Henry L Kaplan and Michael A Forman, Public Speaker

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Networking Unleashed: S1E96 An Interview with Henry L Kaplan and Michael A Forman, Public Speaker · Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections

• 0:17
  and welcome to Networking Unleashed, Building
• 0:20
  Profitable Connections, the show where we uncover
• 0:23
  how powerful relationships shape powerful results.
• 0:27
  I'm your host, Michael Foreman, and today's episode
• 0:30
  is extra special because my guest isn't just
• 0:33
  a business leader, he's also one of my very best
• 0:37
  friends, someone I've known since middle school.
• 0:40
  Over the years, he's built a career guided by
• 0:43
  one simple daily activity, a passion for always
• 0:47
  giving that extra 1 % and the ability to navigate
• 0:51
  the calls no one wants to get, but that inevitably
• 0:55
  come in business and in life. His journey is
• 0:59
  a reminder that the same principles that build
• 1:02
  lasting friendships also build lasting networks.
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  We'll talk about how passion, consistency, and
• 1:09
  relationships carry you through the highs and
• 1:13
  lows of business and why your network is often
• 1:16
  the greatest investment you'll ever make. This
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  one is personal and powerful, so let's dive in.
• 1:23
  I'd like to welcome Henry Kaplan. And as I said
• 1:28
  in the beginning, this is special for me because
• 1:31
  he's one of my very best friends. And I've known
• 1:35
  him since middle school, maybe even a year or
• 1:37
  two beforehand, but I'm really, I don't know,
• 1:40
  but we have so much history, so much that went
• 1:42
  on, but he has made a career. out of the real
• 1:46
  estate market. So I'd like to introduce Henry
• 1:49
  and let him tell you about his background. Henry,
• 1:52
  welcome to the podcast. Good morning, Michael.
• 1:55
  So before I start, I calculated this morning
• 1:58
  to the best of my ability, and we are celebrating
• 2:01
  plus or minus 50 years as friends, which is...
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  to me it's one of the most special things just
• 2:08
  for that reason alone i couldn't wait to come
• 2:10
  see you today and just spend an hour with you
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  because we don't live in the same state anymore
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  and the phone's great but it's even better to
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  see you in person so i really do treasure the
• 2:19
  opportunity thank you so much henry l kaplan
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  i am the presently the sales manager for one
• 2:26
  of the largest century 21 franchises in south
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  florida And I have about 150 agents that are
• 2:32
  affiliated with my office, but I consult with
• 2:34
  most of the agents in the company as well. So
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  it's about 300 plus agents. It's a wonderful
• 2:39
  career and didn't all start that way. A little
• 2:42
  bit about me. I think what's funny, we had a
• 2:45
  session recently and a group session in the office
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  and somebody came up with the question, how,
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  what, at what point did you know what you wanted
• 2:53
  to be? Or what was the first thing you wanted
• 2:55
  to be when you grew up? And so I. I didn't do
• 3:00
  it. I waited for my turn. And everybody was like,
• 3:02
  I want to be a pilot. I wanted to be a fireman.
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  I want to be a nurse, a doctor, a lawyer. And
• 3:07
  everybody joked about it. And nobody in the room
• 3:10
  ended up being that person except for me. And
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  I thought to myself, now, that wasn't the very
• 3:16
  first thing that I wanted to be like in kindergarten.
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  I'm talking about as, let's just say, eight or
• 3:22
  nine or 10 years old, a little bit more mature.
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  And so I decided that I wanted to be in real
• 3:27
  estate. impetus is that the right word to to
• 3:31
  why that happened and it has to do with a piece
• 3:33
  of mail that came i was always looking for mail
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  as a kid i wanted a piece of mail and i never
• 3:38
  got mail and i would be the one to retrieve the
• 3:40
  mail most of the time and i always look and it
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  was never for me until one day the mail said
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  hlk henry l kaplan realty And I'm thinking, finally,
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  a piece of mail for me. I don't know what this
• 3:52
  realty thing is, a realty. I didn't know. So
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  I went to my dad. I think this is for me. He
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  said, no, son, that's your grandfather's company.
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  And I'm sorry, yeah, realty company that he owned,
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  but he's passed. And I manage the assets for
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  him. And I said, what is realty? What are assets?
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  And I started asking a lot of questions. And
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  he told me, we have a little apartment building
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  that I manage for the family. And that's the
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  grandfather's company name. He was Harry L. Kaplan,
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  Henry L. Kaplan. And as the more he talked about
• 4:19
  it, the more I thought to myself, wow, wouldn't
• 4:22
  it be cool not just have some type of connection
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  with a man I never knew, but something my father
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  knew something about. He was a CPA by trade.
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  And so I kept in the back of my mind, although
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  I did have other careers prior to real estate,
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  paper delivery boy and cutting lawns for many
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  years throughout college, high school and college,
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  and then right out of college. I actually, in
• 4:43
  one of my... elective classes i took the real
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  estate course for new york and i passed i was
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  in the college boat it was easy and then i started
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  as a realtor and and i my career has been quite
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  amazing i'm not going to spend the next whatever
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  but i'll give you like maybe a three minute of
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  things that i've done so i started off with just
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  as a realtor and literally a week into training
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  we merged with a big company my company with
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  called weicker realtors and weicker was a great
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  foundation for training and understanding the
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  business and keeping it simple. And so from Weikert,
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  I, like I said, I just graduated. So I really
• 5:20
  wanted to get involved in the business. And I
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  started like back then, most people don't realize
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  this, but we didn't even have the multiple listing
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  books or not. We had recipe cards in Rockland
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  County, New York for every house. And I had to
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  carry a metal recipe card bin with me until it
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  hit the frame of the door of the office one day
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  and 700 cards flew out. And I thought to myself,
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  they just installed something in the corner that
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  they tell me it's a computer and nobody used
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  it like for a month. So my decision is that's
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  it. I'm not going to reorganize this thing. I'm
• 5:51
  going to figure it out. So I logged in with DOS
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  to the multiple listing to a coupler with AOL.
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  And, and I figured out the computer when other
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  people wouldn't do that. And a couple of guys
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  came along that my age, we used to go to home
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  for dinner. We all lived at home, 20 something
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  years old. And we did the master laster shift
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  after dinner, go back to the office till one
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  12, one o 'clock in the morning, learning real
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  estate, looking up properties online. And I learned
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  to actually the company, I said to the company,
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  I can do this. I can print these sheets out and,
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  and provide this to all the agents in our six
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  offices. In my mid twenties. weichert hired me
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  as like i didn't call me a director but they
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  said you're going to be the guy that prints these
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  out on spreadsheets or give gave me copy machine
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  the size of a small car and i delivered these
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  sheets to all six offices and that was the very
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  beginning of printed mls data 1984 1985. and
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  then books came along so i i got became antiquated
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  which i was totally fine with And my career just
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  navigated through real estate agent to, I guess,
• 6:53
  the technology guy. And I realized I love technology.
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  I mean, it saved me so much time. I didn't have
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  to carry around. And everybody loved that the
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  industry kept moving forward. And long story
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  short, a few years later, I became a broker,
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  real estate broker in New York. I owned my own
• 7:08
  company until I sold it to Century 21, the largest
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  franchisee in New York in 1991. I ran a rental
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  division for years for them. And then I ended
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  up in corporate headquarters for Century 21 Corporate.
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  It was a wonderful ride. And then I started a
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  franchise orientation department, traveled the
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  country meeting new franchisees. And lo and behold,
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  four bosses later in corporate America, I decided,
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  actually, I got a boss that said, Mr. Kaplan,
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  call me Henry, no? She was a West Point graduate.
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  And she said, I'm going to teach you how to march.
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  And the only thing that came to mind was, but
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  I've been doing serpentine my whole life. Was
• 7:50
  that Animal House? So she didn't like that answer.
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  She didn't like that answer. And so it was either
• 7:56
  her or me. She found a technicality to bring
• 7:59
  me to HR. The president of the company was the
• 8:02
  guy who hired me. So he came into the meeting.
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  And I knew that it was like my time was up at
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  corporate headquarters. And so I decided to.
• 8:11
  transition. And basically I tried a brand outside
• 8:14
  of Century 21, which I won't mention. 2005, it
• 8:17
  wasn't the right fit because one of my responsibilities
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  was I had to babysit a guy that drank too much.
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  That wasn't always a good thing. And that was
• 8:25
  the end for that. And I came back to Century
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  21 and I've stayed ever since. And the jobs I've
• 8:29
  had with corporate were wonderful because they
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  moved me to Florida. Obviously, even before I
• 8:34
  left. And I got to be with my family, which was
• 8:36
  really important. President said, why are you
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  doing that? Why are you leaving? I said, because
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  I want to be with family. He said, that's not
• 8:42
  the right answer. You want to move up in this
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  company. So the only thing I could think of,
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  I pointed at him and I said, but you were in
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  the field before you became president. So I guess
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  I have to be in the field to maybe make a move
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  up like that one day too. And he said, okay,
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  that's the right answer. I'll let you. And they're
• 8:57
  going to chew you up and spit you out. in florida
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  so long story short they didn't and oh so i had
• 9:02
  to divide and conquer because there was some
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  hostilities for a lack of service that our franchisees
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  were getting and and so one by one i chipped
• 9:10
  away and i have some long -term relationships
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  from the time i came to florida over 25 years
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  ago and and then i navigated like prior to covid
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  actually let me think i covered way bit prior
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  to that it was it was back in 20 years ago. So
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  let's just say 2005, right? And the market was
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  okay. It was moving along. But one of my local
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  franchisees, I was working in a really small
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  Century 21 office near home. And he was one of
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  my best friends because I was consulting with
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  him and 95 other customers, brokers, with, I
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  don't know, maybe 1400 realtors total. And he
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  said, I'm ready. I'm ready for you to come join
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  me. And I was like, wow now like right now he
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  said yeah now so i had to quit of course gave
• 9:59
  proper notice and i came to the office about
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  today and it's been an amazing ride it took all
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  those years of being a salesperson a broker customer
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  service rep for the national franchise all the
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  way down to the office level and and then 2008
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  hit and our market fell apart and long story
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  short that's pretty much when i came along and
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  we just rebuilt from the ground up. And it's
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  a place where I am done. I'm not done working.
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  I'm not done managing, but I'm not moving. I
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  know where I'm supposed to be today. That's unbelievable.
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  And all I can think about, all I kept on thinking
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  about was HLK Realty. And that was, I think,
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  your first on your own real estate company. It
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  was my grandfather's name. I took it and I put
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  it on science. Absolutely. And I remember myself
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  being in an office and your mom came into me
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  and said, go talk to Henry about something that
• 11:02
  happened. And that's what I remember. You remember
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  that office was my dad's CPA office. And I cleaned
• 11:09
  out the storage room to have my little desk and
• 11:13
  a chair to probably sit there with you. It's
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  great. It's great. Okay. All right. Let's dive
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  right into the questions. You ready? Go for it.
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  Hammer away. Okay. You and I go all the way back
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  to middle school. How has that early friendship
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  shaped the way you approach relationships and
• 11:31
  networking in your business career? That relationship
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  started before we met. All right. And the really
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  neat thing about, I think it probably came. it
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  started with my dad and my mom a loving family
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  and whatnot and dad was a serial entrepreneur
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  had his own cpa practice and he specialized in
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  the funeral home industry and he'd say hey henry
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  this is a great business i'm like really dad
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  because yeah they're dying to get in they're
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  dying to get it but that's what he was telling
• 12:00
  me and then finally i started laughing as a as
• 12:03
  an older kid i thought it was oh that's silly
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  dad but and he was always hoping maybe i would
• 12:07
  do that and actually interviewed as a sideline
• 12:09
  to one of his best friends and clients, but it
• 12:12
  just wasn't for me. But the relationships, the
• 12:14
  families, my siblings, the closeness. And when
• 12:18
  you're a family of three or four kids, like you've
• 12:20
  been a communicator, you're not going to eat,
• 12:21
  you're not going to survive. And then, and I
• 12:24
  can remember as far back as kindergarten. So
• 12:27
  what was I, six years old, something like that.
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  And I remember one by one making really, not
• 12:33
  just talking peripherally to kids, but being
• 12:37
  excited to be beyond my siblings to learn and
• 12:39
  talk. create friendships with these children.
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  And it was just one by one. Brad Sherman, big
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  tall guy. He ended up being like my protector.
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  One of my best friends, like Michael. And he
• 12:53
  was always six, four. I was like five, whatever.
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  Now, back then, he seemed really tall. But if
• 12:57
  you look at the pictures, the crazy thing is
• 12:59
  that Stewie Green and Mike Wilk and Richie Isaacs
• 13:04
  and Merrill and I'm friends. What's the chance
• 13:07
  that I'm friends with half the kids? in my original
• 13:10
  kindergarten class. Ricky Mignotella, Larry Fox,
• 13:13
  I could keep going. I realized that's really,
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  even young, that was when we went to junior high
• 13:19
  school, we had new people like Michael, and our
• 13:21
  elementary school was split, but we all came
• 13:24
  back together except for Michael in high school.
• 13:27
  Why is that, Michael? Why is that? Because I
• 13:30
  moved away. I moved from one town to another
• 13:33
  town. They weren't even close to each other.
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  I had a bike at least 13 miles. so did i i buy
• 13:39
  it back and forth yeah exactly just to see you
• 13:43
  just to see you back and forth yeah so basically
• 13:47
  we came up we most of us came back together in
• 13:49
  high school and we've been inseparable ever since
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  and and that's just facebook friends one one
• 13:55
  of the guys i was part of the original group
• 13:57
  we started a guy's thing the guys get together
• 14:00
  being in new york we always go in atlantic city
• 14:02
  a couple times a year and then as we adulted
• 14:06
  We made the trip to Las Vegas once a year, and
• 14:08
  we've had as many as, I don't know, 20, 25 guys.
• 14:11
  I actually have a picture somewhere buried on
• 14:13
  my credenza of one of the last shots we took
• 14:16
  of, I would say, 18 or 20 of us. And when you
• 14:19
  check in with people, especially in person, every
• 14:22
  year for your whole life, it's pretty amazing,
• 14:24
  and it keeps us together as a group. And the
• 14:26
  cool thing is that group's coming together Thanksgiving
• 14:28
  weekend for one of the guys' son's wedding. There'll
• 14:33
  be 13 of us back together again. And it's funny
• 14:36
  because it has to do, there's a side story. And
• 14:40
  I know I'm probably taking too much time, but
• 14:41
  I'm going to keep going because I need to share
• 14:43
  this. It's not just my parents that helped me.
• 14:46
  All right. I have to tell you a story. I was
• 14:48
  staying over at a friend's house one night. We
• 14:50
  just hung out with each other, whatever. And
• 14:52
  I got up early, slept over. I got up early, just
• 14:55
  went downstairs. I don't know, read or watch
• 14:58
  TV. And mom showed up to the kitchen. And she
• 15:01
  sat down with me and she said, I have to tell
• 15:04
  you, I'm so happy that you and this person are
• 15:06
  still friends for such a long time. She goes,
• 15:08
  I have relationships, Henry, that span 30, 40
• 15:12
  years. And you can make a conscious decision
• 15:15
  to be friends with somebody forever. And jokingly,
• 15:19
  she gave me permission too. She goes, and if
• 15:21
  you don't like somebody, it's okay not to be
• 15:23
  friends with them as well. But she says, I see
• 15:25
  that you and Michael Foreman, because this conversation
• 15:27
  was with your mom, Sandy Foreman, really resonated
• 15:32
  deep with me that I can make a conscious decision
• 15:35
  never to let go. And you were one of those people.
• 15:38
  You are one of those people. You'll always be
• 15:39
  one of those people. We admit to the day you
• 15:41
  were gone. And I've taken her advice, plus my
• 15:44
  family's advice, obviously, and the experience
• 15:46
  I already had, and I've applied that. Not just
• 15:49
  to my relationships and my family, but well beyond
• 15:52
  that, to my realtors, to my friends, my extended
• 15:55
  family, my pickleball friends, my poker friends.
• 15:58
  I'm the guy that they love, they trust. They
• 16:02
  call me, they ask me. I want to be that guy for
• 16:05
  everybody. It's just my way to give back. I want
• 16:08
  to be the guy. You have taken what you've learned,
• 16:13
  okay, and you've made relationships. That is
• 16:16
  the art of networking. at least after the pandemic,
• 16:20
  right? Because before the pandemic, people, most
• 16:23
  people, not you, but most people, it was mostly
• 16:27
  transactional. After the pandemic, it became
• 16:30
  more relational, relationship, but you have taken
• 16:34
  it to the nth degree. You have taken it, since
• 16:37
  you were five years old, you created relationships
• 16:41
  when other people were just making friends. And
• 16:44
  that's what I think sets you apart from just
• 16:47
  about everybody else, because you've made those
• 16:50
  relationships and you've worked at it to keep
• 16:53
  up those relationships because you never know
• 16:56
  where they come in, whether you can help them
• 16:58
  or they can help you or what you're doing. But
• 17:01
  you don't look at it from what they can do for
• 17:04
  you. You look at what you can do for them. And
• 17:07
  that is the beauty of the relationship. One more
• 17:11
  thing my mom mentioned, I have to bring this
• 17:12
  up. She said, even if you don't talk to somebody
• 17:15
  for a long time, she said you could touch base
• 17:19
  with them and pick up from where you left off.
• 17:22
  And that's been not just Michael and our story
• 17:25
  together, but it's been that story with me and
• 17:28
  so many people and so many revived relationships
• 17:31
  that it's exciting for me. Like to me, finding
• 17:35
  somebody. I found a guy about seven years ago
• 17:38
  that disappeared from high school. We've gone,
• 17:40
  it's 40 years already. Where is he? And I found
• 17:43
  him with the internet and we reestablished four
• 17:45
  friends all over again. And it became a real
• 17:48
  estate opportunity. So it's never about the real
• 17:50
  estate opportunity. There's something in the
• 17:51
  back of my door that says care first, commission
• 17:54
  last. And that's what I do. And I think it's
• 17:58
  a move a little bit further than that because
• 18:00
  I believe that you went to high school with your
• 18:03
  wife. Am I correct? That's true. So I have to
• 18:07
  give Nancy a shout out. She was in junior high
• 18:10
  school with us. So we were all friends with her
• 18:12
  back in junior high school. And I made a huge
• 18:15
  mistake in 1981. She was such a mature woman.
• 18:19
  I was such a kid in junior high school and beautiful
• 18:22
  and the body of a 25 year old at 13. And so I
• 18:26
  was just not afraid, but I wasn't confident enough.
• 18:30
  So we became. friends really close friends and
• 18:33
  for six years between junior high school and
• 18:35
  high school until i finally asked her to date
• 18:37
  me and then i made the biggest mistake in my
• 18:39
  life and i just made a story up in my head and
• 18:42
  i wasn't honest enough or mature enough to tell
• 18:44
  her i how could it be that i bet the person i'm
• 18:47
  gonna end up marrying so i broke up with her
• 18:50
  i made a little lie i'm sorry but my mom would
• 18:52
  say it was a little white lie i wanted to date
• 18:54
  other women it was never about that it was just
• 18:56
  that her sister was getting married and I just
• 18:59
  felt, my gosh, she's only a couple of years older.
• 19:01
  Am I next? And so I spent the next 38 years,
• 19:05
  not 38 years, but we lost touch over the years.
• 19:09
  And long story short, I got married to somebody
• 19:12
  else and have a great son, Ethan. And it just
• 19:15
  didn't work out. And Nancy and I became friends
• 19:17
  again. Back in 2015, she moved to Florida. She
• 19:21
  likes to gamble. We played poker. I played poker
• 19:23
  as a kid. And through her divorce and my divorce,
• 19:26
  separated by some years, we just reconnected.
• 19:29
  And I'm going to be celebrating our four -year
• 19:32
  anniversary. It's a beautiful story. It's a beautiful
• 19:35
  story. And me, I feel, because I was friends
• 19:38
  with both of you. And it just, it feels extra
• 19:41
  special for me. But okay. Can I mention one thing
• 19:44
  about how we reconnected? Technology. social
• 19:48
  media in my defense i didn't know that facebook
• 19:51
  had a second button the second app called messenger
• 19:54
  so 2015 i discovered it and there were messages
• 19:58
  back some years at least at least a year or more
• 20:01
  and nancy was one of those messages hey i moved
• 20:03
  to florida i'm in lake i'm in lake birth florida
• 20:06
  it seems like you might be close by maybe we
• 20:08
  can connect whatever talk And so a year later,
• 20:11
  I said, yeah, it's never too late because I just
• 20:13
  discovered her old message. And so we reconnected
• 20:16
  through Messenger in 2015. So that's great. It
• 20:20
  was meant to be. That's all it was meant to be.
• 20:22
  And you two were meant to be together. OK, so
• 20:25
  you've mentioned one simple daily activity that
• 20:30
  has guided you through your career. What is it
• 20:33
  and how has it impacted the way you build and
• 20:36
  maintain your network? Great. So, again, I think
• 20:41
  everything I know, I don't know if I've ever
• 20:44
  had an original idea, all right? I beg, borrow,
• 20:46
  steal everything that I know, and I give credit
• 20:48
  to whoever. I can't even remember who told me
• 20:50
  because it's become part of my DNA. But I did
• 20:52
  read a small real estate article in a magazine
• 20:55
  or a newsletter or something like that in the
• 20:57
  early, I'm sorry, mid -1980s. and i got two really
• 21:02
  good pieces of advice one of them i still use
• 21:04
  the first one that i don't use any longer in
• 21:07
  the formal way is i don't place ads in the newspaper
• 21:11
  any longer i stopped that but that was a big
• 21:14
  part of my success as a new broker owner of a
• 21:18
  real estate company in the mid late 80s I was
• 21:22
  killing it in the Journal News, the Rockwood
• 21:24
  County Journal News newspaper with three or four
• 21:26
  line ads. And I took a contract and I spent as
• 21:30
  much as I could and just getting that type of
• 21:32
  exposure. And that's the main word for me today
• 21:36
  with real estate, I'm sorry, with business is
• 21:39
  exposure. If you don't, doesn't it stand to reason,
• 21:42
  Mike, the more people exposed to you, the better
• 21:44
  chance you have of getting your services, your
• 21:46
  friendship. Absolutely, get your word out. And
• 21:49
  so I say that with sellers too. It doesn't stand
• 21:52
  to reason the more people that know about your
• 21:54
  property, the more I syndicate and set a better
• 21:56
  chance that we have of getting it sold. So I
• 21:58
  apply the word exposure in everything I do. And
• 22:01
  I keep trying to uncover new areas of exposure.
• 22:04
  Now, coming back to your question, the one thing
• 22:06
  that I still do, and Mike, if you had a calculator
• 22:10
  in front of you, which you don't have to, because
• 22:11
  I've already figured this out this morning, because
• 22:13
  I want them to be prepared for anything you might
• 22:15
  throw at me. So just randomly. 1984, so it's
• 22:19
  2025, that's 41 years, times 365 days is 14 ,965
• 22:26
  days. I started in the beginning of my career
• 22:30
  with adding one person to my database or my phone.
• 22:35
  Let's just say my phone. And back then, it was,
• 22:38
  if you remember, it was like pagers still. So
• 22:40
  I had to keep a... a hard copy of, I carried
• 22:43
  a date timer around. Nobody knows what a date
• 22:45
  timer is. I know what a date timer is. And inside
• 22:48
  that date timer had a little beige address book.
• 22:51
  And I jam packed that address book with names,
• 22:54
  addresses, phone numbers, and emails. And if
• 22:56
  you miss one of those, actually back then it
• 22:57
  wasn't emails, but name, mailing address, phone
• 23:00
  number. And then when cell phone came around
• 23:02
  and then emails came around, I transitioned to
• 23:04
  that too. So I am a little short. And I took
• 23:08
  your mom's advice. So technically, I would have
• 23:10
  had almost 15 ,000. But I decided to remove some
• 23:14
  people that I didn't want to do business with
• 23:16
  any longer. I didn't feel that they were ethical
• 23:19
  or they were manageable. I've given my permission
• 23:23
  to do that over the years. It was hard for me
• 23:26
  to let people go, especially if I could have
• 23:27
  made money. But I'm at the point in my career
• 23:29
  where I really want to work with people that
• 23:32
  want to work with me and that are delightful
• 23:33
  and fun and engaging. And it's more than a franchise
• 23:36
  business, of course, but many of these people
• 23:38
  I've become friends with. So every day for the
• 23:41
  last, let's just say 40 plus years, I've added
• 23:44
  one person to my database, just one. And that
• 23:47
  to me, and maintaining it is not easy. I'm not
• 23:51
  perfect and I could probably delete a few thousand
• 23:53
  from my phone, but I don't. Oh, and if somebody
• 23:55
  passes. i delete that that person as well of
• 23:58
  course it's so simple but a lot of people say
• 24:01
  i don't have that kind of time that's why you
• 24:02
  should start now don't wait one a day one per
• 24:06
  day it's amazing back from the convention i'm
• 24:08
  sorry for the weekend and so i picked up a bunch
• 24:10
  of business cards so i'm transitioning now not
• 24:13
  just for the phone but now i'm using linkedin
• 24:17
  to find them and connect with them on linkedin
• 24:20
  not just my phone because linkedin may not easily
• 24:23
  have their mailing address Because little things
• 24:25
  we do in my office is we write a personal note
• 24:27
  and that's one of my greatest weaknesses. But
• 24:30
  without a mailing address, it's not easy to do.
• 24:33
  I'll tell you. And one of my secrets to success
• 24:36
  is the follow -up factor. When I go in, I do
• 24:40
  a workshop with a business or a company. I always
• 24:43
  give them a series of things to do for the follow
• 24:46
  -up because I feel that the follow -up. is more
• 24:49
  important than actually meeting the person. And
• 24:52
  the main part of that follow -up, A, do an email
• 24:55
  that night. But the following morning, you write
• 25:00
  a personal, handwritten thank you note to that
• 25:05
  person. No business, no anything else, just thanking
• 25:08
  them for their time. You put your card in, you
• 25:11
  put that envelope, and you mail it out. And you
• 25:14
  wait about three or four days. So that has the
• 25:17
  biggest impact on somebody. Because imagine being
• 25:20
  the person that you receive that thank you note.
• 25:24
  It's not a bill. It's not anything else. It's
• 25:26
  just a thank you. Oh, this person met me the
• 25:29
  other night and he wants to thank me. So this
• 25:33
  is what we send from the office. It's C21. It
• 25:38
  has nothing but our logo and a handwritten note
• 25:40
  which somebody left on my desk. yesterday and
• 25:43
  she i was away for the convention a little convention
• 25:45
  i didn't tell anybody where i'm going i said
• 25:46
  i'm taking off so she was checking to make sure
• 25:48
  i'm okay and she's so grateful for the relationship
• 25:50
  yeah i responded to her and a little help from
• 25:54
  my cousin chat and because i really it's just
• 25:57
  i didn't want to have to i knew what i felt but
• 25:59
  i really wanted to come out and find words and
• 26:01
  so we pay mike listen to this we pay for every
• 26:04
  one of our agents for five cards a day the card
• 26:07
  the envelope and the stamp to connect with somebody
• 26:10
  that they've either spoken to or have met in
• 26:13
  person. Not for prospecting, like in the neighbors,
• 26:16
  talk to or met. Guess how many out of 140 agents,
• 26:19
  guess how many agents use their maximum allocation
• 26:23
  every day? And that's $10 a day, $50 a week.
• 26:27
  Ten. Ten? Ten agents. One. One. I was being generous
• 26:35
  when I said ten. I really thought five. Okay,
• 26:38
  but I was being generous when I said 10. But
• 26:41
  listen, you're not telling me that something
• 26:43
  that I don't know because people don't take the
• 26:46
  time and you don't realize the impact that you
• 26:50
  have on a personal thank you note. Right. So
• 26:55
  if you can tell your agents the impact that it
• 27:00
  would have on somebody's day, not just that you
• 27:03
  send them a card, but the impact that they would
• 27:05
  have on somebody's whole day, just for them receiving
• 27:08
  that card, maybe they'll send a few more. Think
• 27:11
  about it. You go to the mailbox every day. I
• 27:14
  still book the mail every day. There's hardly
• 27:16
  anything in the mailbox. A card is not going
• 27:18
  to, a handwritten card, a handwritten envelope,
• 27:21
  a handwritten card inside. Don't be using technology.
• 27:24
  I'm just going to pray to this company to do
• 27:25
  it for me. You know what? To me, it takes, what,
• 27:28
  about two minutes? And I know time is our enemy.
• 27:31
  Time is, we have to, we can't, we have to take
• 27:32
  advantage of those little moments, like Mike
• 27:34
  said, to connect. And I think to myself, and
• 27:38
  I know some people that do a really good job,
• 27:39
  and especially one of my lenders. and he always
• 27:42
  puts a scratcher dollar scratcher and you know
• 27:46
  what people want to talk to me all the time what
• 27:48
  can i spend my money i said stop spending money
• 27:50
  spend time and a little bit of money on people
• 27:52
  that know you like you and trust you write the
• 27:55
  note mail it you give them a scratcher what if
• 27:57
  they win good for them they're going to thank
• 27:59
  you even more maybe buy a property from you don't
• 28:01
  think of that i call it stinking thinking from
• 28:03
  a floyd wickman one of my mentors Real estate
• 28:06
  mentors. But those little things go such a low.
• 28:09
  There's 1%. Do one contact and 1 % extra, Mike,
• 28:13
  every day. 1%. Absolutely. Absolutely. I can't
• 28:17
  add anything to that because that was said perfectly.
• 28:20
  That is exactly what everybody should do. But
• 28:23
  nobody does. Or just about nobody does. Okay.
• 28:27
  Let me do the third question. In business, we
• 28:31
  all get that call that you never want to get.
• 28:35
  How important is having a strong network in helping
• 28:39
  you navigate through those moments? It happens
• 28:42
  to me a lot as the manager of a busy real estate
• 28:45
  office because the call that I never want to
• 28:47
  get is that we put somebody's money at risk.
• 28:51
  When you lose money on typically the buyer's
• 28:55
  behalf, you slay the dragon. The dragon could
• 28:59
  be your best friend. You slay the golden goose
• 29:01
  is an even better example. What's the chance
• 29:04
  if you lose money for somebody, they're ever
• 29:05
  going to come back to you? And in this day and
• 29:07
  age, when that happens too, even if it's not
• 29:09
  your fault, which I think many times we could
• 29:11
  have prevented it, most of the times we could
• 29:13
  have prevented it, is that you'll never, what's
• 29:16
  a lead worth? What's a contact? What's a person
• 29:18
  worth? We say real estate's a contact sport,
• 29:20
  so start with contacts, not leads. And then leads
• 29:22
  become contacts. Sorry, contacts become leads.
• 29:25
  And that we know in real estate that, that a
• 29:28
  solid contact a great we call whale a really
• 29:31
  great contact somebody who knows a lot of people
• 29:33
  could be worth 30 40 50 000 in your career if
• 29:36
  it's something that as they make recommendations
• 29:38
  they use you personally and then now with social
• 29:41
  media i can't tell you how many times we get
• 29:43
  playing for something we weren't even involved
• 29:45
  in so can you imagine what we are so to me the
• 29:48
  call i never want to get is i tell my realtors
• 29:51
  i want to know two weeks before rather than one
• 29:53
  second late Because in Florida, our contracts
• 29:56
  are timers of the essence, which means at 1159
• 29:59
  PM on any business day, we can really be in default
• 30:03
  of a legal agreement. So that's the hardest thing
• 30:06
  as a manager is to make sure people understand
• 30:08
  those timeframes and those obligations. But the
• 30:10
  second, or maybe even the first worst call you
• 30:13
  can ever get, Mike, has to do with you or your
• 30:17
  family. And so my worst call was... About three
• 30:22
  years ago, three and a half years ago, when I
• 30:24
  got a call from my doctor's office and they said,
• 30:26
  Henry, something's off with your blood work.
• 30:28
  We'd like you to see a nephrologist. And I'm
• 30:31
  like, what kind of ist is that? And it's the
• 30:34
  kidney doctor. Oh, it's kidney doctor. What's
• 30:36
  up? He goes, I don't like what I see. And so
• 30:39
  I went to see a nephrologist and Dr. Silverstein,
• 30:42
  she was a seasoned pro and I'm waiting for the
• 30:46
  room. And after my blood test came back, she
• 30:48
  said, Actually, she got them from the other doctor.
• 30:51
  She goes, Mr. Kaplan, you have advanced kidney
• 30:53
  disease. Have you thought about a transplant
• 30:55
  yet? I'm thinking, the only thing that came out
• 30:58
  of my mind was, you got the wrong Mr. Kaplan.
• 31:00
  Because I feel fine. She goes, oh no, I got the
• 31:03
  right Mr. Kaplan. Apparently, I had a combination
• 31:07
  of, it wasn't cancer, but a combination of ailments
• 31:09
  that, actually ailments, I said factors that
• 31:13
  created a permanent ailment in both my kidneys
• 31:15
  were going, oop, can you still see me? i can
• 31:19
  see you all right both of my kidneys were still
• 31:21
  going they were going dead and i was really concerned
• 31:25
  so i i went out and by the way it was like three
• 31:28
  months after i got married to nancy so yeah a
• 31:30
  little three between three or four years ago
• 31:32
  and so long story short we did a biopsy to determine
• 31:36
  that certain factors they said i was obese i
• 31:39
  never felt obese but i'm not skinny either meat
• 31:41
  consumption diabetes and high blood pressure
• 31:44
  contributed to my kidneys and and i decided and
• 31:47
  i thought my god i just got married and if you
• 31:49
  live by like i do expect the unexpected and you'll
• 31:53
  never be surprised i said okay at first i had
• 31:56
  to go see nancy right away i waited till she
• 31:58
  got home she was like why are you doing what
• 32:00
  are you why are you home early usually working
• 32:02
  late and i told her she goes we'll work through
• 32:04
  it we'll figure it out this is not the end this
• 32:06
  is and so fast forward to july 26 of 2023 i was
• 32:12
  able to find a donor and and she didn't have
• 32:14
  a blood type match but i went social with youtube
• 32:17
  and facebook and had 13 000 views and many recommendations
• 32:21
  and i said shouldn't say recommendations many
• 32:24
  people offering to help me and including my two
• 32:27
  sisters And many were disqualified except for
• 32:30
  Rebecca. And Rebecca was my cousin's wife's sister.
• 32:34
  Didn't know me. I didn't know her. But she stepped
• 32:37
  up and through an exchange program, the National
• 32:38
  Kidney Registry, nkr .org, I was able to get
• 32:42
  a live donor. She gave hers. who gives a kidney
• 32:45
  selflessly doesn't even know you to a stranger
• 32:48
  a woman in california and a month later i received
• 32:51
  one from a man in rochester minnesota within
• 32:54
  24 hours it was in my body and he gave his because
• 32:57
  his wife needed one when she got one somebody
• 32:59
  else got one such chain reaction but it starts
• 33:02
  with one selfless individual that was rebecca
• 33:05
  that's outstanding outstanding and I knew, of
• 33:10
  course, I knew the whole story and you left a
• 33:12
  few parts out, but that was the gist of the story.
• 33:15
  And listen, nobody is happier than I am to see
• 33:20
  you on this podcast and to see you working. So
• 33:24
  let me give you a side story because you're right.
• 33:26
  You do know more. I don't know if you know this
• 33:28
  side story, but there will be adversity in your
• 33:31
  life and your business every step of the way.
• 33:34
  I'm not a negative person. The glass is half
• 33:36
  full for me. But I've learned that when even
• 33:40
  I had nine people offering one of those people
• 33:42
  before Rebecca, even Rebecca told me early on,
• 33:45
  but I was looking for a match. And if you're
• 33:47
  a kidney, if you need a kidney, don't look for
• 33:49
  a match, look for a healthy person. And so one
• 33:51
  of these people said a woman, she said to me,
• 33:53
  and it's going to sound weird. I'm not going
• 33:55
  to stop Henry till my kidney is in your body.
• 33:58
  Now that's a pretty darn big commitment. And
• 34:01
  I put my, my. my trust and faith and by the way
• 34:05
  michael knows this i went on dialysis peritoneal
• 34:08
  through the abdomen at home while i slept for
• 34:11
  seven months on dialysis it wasn't a hop skipping
• 34:13
  a jump getting a kidney but i waited for the
• 34:16
  wrong person and i guess many of you probably
• 34:18
  read who moved my cheese was not happening mike
• 34:20
  that cheese corner that kidney corner was empty
• 34:22
  with this woman it ends up that she didn't pass
• 34:25
  the mental part of the exam and and so she bowed
• 34:28
  out gracefully two people didn't of the nine
• 34:30
  so even when you think you've got this you've
• 34:33
  got this you don't until i'll say until your
• 34:37
  doctors tell you your blood test came out well
• 34:39
  or until you're off medications though to the
• 34:42
  best of your ability which i'll never be off
• 34:43
  because of anti -rejection or until the deal
• 34:46
  closes and it funds and even beyond you have
• 34:49
  to have proper insurance because people always
• 34:51
  find a way to try to point a finger at you, even
• 34:53
  though three fingers are pointing back at them,
• 34:55
  because you never know what's going to rear its
• 34:57
  ugly head one day. So do the right thing, even
• 34:59
  when nobody's watching. That was one of my side
• 35:01
  stories. No, it's perfect. Listen, back in New
• 35:05
  York, I was in the mortgage industry. So I feel
• 35:08
  exactly what you're saying. I can talk about
• 35:11
  this for another two hours, but let's go ahead.
• 35:14
  You talk about the extra 1 % rule. How can that
• 35:19
  principle be applied to networking so people
• 35:21
  stand out and create deeper connections? I try
• 35:26
  to give before I get. To me, it's just, I don't
• 35:29
  know, something, it's definitely not been my
• 35:31
  whole career, but it's been some years. And so
• 35:36
  when I meet somebody at a networking event, I
• 35:39
  first of all, I pick out usually the loner to
• 35:42
  start with. That's just me. One, I can approach
• 35:46
  anybody and say, hey, I'm Henry. What's your
• 35:48
  name? Hey, I'm John. what type of work do you
• 35:51
  do like normally it's a business networking group
• 35:53
  and and so he starts explaining i'm an audiologist
• 35:56
  and and so i've got a pretty busy pretty practice
• 35:59
  either studying i'm trying to grow my business
• 36:00
  and just change locations and and so occasionally
• 36:03
  i'm like great you know what i got a hearing
• 36:05
  aid now oh i've got a bluetooth device which
• 36:08
  it is so people think i'm like i'm crazy sometimes
• 36:11
  i'm talking like you're talking to me that guy
• 36:13
  michael on the street that you would see talking
• 36:14
  we thought he was crazy growing up he probably
• 36:17
  just had advanced technology or what we have
• 36:20
  But seriously, so I love to meet somebody. I
• 36:22
  love to figure out. I love to get their information.
• 36:25
  And then I'll add them to a list. I always try
• 36:28
  to give two or three names. I'm like, yeah, I
• 36:29
  met this guy. He seemed really nice. You might
• 36:31
  want to look him up on Google and see his reviews.
• 36:34
  But I always like to try to connect people to
• 36:36
  connect. Because not that they owe me, but I
• 36:38
  always think that they appreciate the referral.
• 36:41
  And I've never been a part of BNI. but I know
• 36:44
  people that have, and that's really good. But
• 36:46
  there was a second thing I wanted to share with
• 36:47
  you about, about, oh yeah. So when I meet somebody
• 36:50
  who says, um, I am an endoscopic specialist,
• 36:54
  I'm thinking, okay, so I'll let him talk. And
• 36:57
  then I'll be like, all right. So how would I
• 37:00
  know if the next person I'm talking to would
• 37:02
  be a good prospect for you? I don't want to say,
• 37:05
  can you explain that in plain English or dumb
• 37:08
  it down for me? How enough the next person I'm
• 37:10
  going to talk to today or any other day would
• 37:11
  be a good prospect for you. Oh, if they ever
• 37:14
  have like knee pain or ankle, I'll go in with
• 37:16
  scopes and cameras. And sometimes they don't
• 37:18
  even tell you what they really do. Or I'm a doctor.
• 37:21
  What type of doctor? I'm a psychologist. Oh,
• 37:23
  great. You're not animizing me now, are you?
• 37:25
  I try to break the ice. An icebreaker, a quick
• 37:28
  question or two. I love to just connect and don't
• 37:31
  feel obligated to, especially like when I go
• 37:34
  out to some of these events, I try to get away
• 37:36
  from real estate events because the realtor is
• 37:38
  never going to give me business, right? Another
• 37:39
  realtor. But I try to move too and say, hey,
• 37:42
  I'm so nice to meet you. And then we move on.
• 37:44
  So once you've got it, you build it, there's
• 37:47
  no reason to spend another 40 minutes and really
• 37:48
  not have the opportunity to meet more people.
• 37:52
  Absolutely right. And you touched on this just
• 37:55
  a little bit, but when you go to a networking
• 37:57
  event, you have what's called a servant's heart.
• 38:00
  It's giver's game, right? So if you go to a networking
• 38:04
  event and all you think about was serving other
• 38:07
  people, not you're there to sell a widget or
• 38:11
  you have a service or something else like that,
• 38:13
  forget all that, right? You're there to make
• 38:16
  everyone else or everybody that you come in contact
• 38:18
  with more successful. So my line that I teach
• 38:24
  in workshops and everything else is after you
• 38:27
  have that one or two people down and you have
• 38:30
  them talking about their business, you say, you
• 38:33
  know something, how can I make you more successful?
• 38:38
  How can I be a good referral source for you?
• 38:41
  And most of the time, if I've done my job correctly,
• 38:44
  they say, Mike, I don't even know what you do
• 38:46
  yet. So, they tell me how I can be a good referral
• 38:52
  source for them. And I make myself, in this area,
• 38:56
  I'm known as a super connector. Because every
• 38:59
  week, and I have been doing this for the last
• 39:01
  two, two and a half years, every week I find
• 39:04
  two people with a need and I put them together.
• 39:07
  And I walk away. Fantastic. So that's all that
• 39:11
  I do. That's all that I do. We have something
• 39:14
  in our Johns Creek Chamber of Commerce called
• 39:18
  having an ambassador. And once a week, myself
• 39:21
  and three or four other people, we go out around
• 39:24
  the town just saying what we can do for them.
• 39:28
  So if you do that, make your life, make a habit
• 39:33
  of giving. Because most people think, wait a
• 39:35
  second. I'm in business. I want the business.
• 39:39
  I want to sell two or three widgets for X amount
• 39:41
  of dollars. Take that off your, take that out
• 39:44
  of your head. Take it off your shoulders and
• 39:47
  just get, because what goes around does come
• 39:49
  around. Bob Burke was a big speaker in the networking
• 39:53
  world. He's where I got the line from. Okay.
• 39:55
  Let me tell you. And he does exactly. He's a
• 39:58
  Floridian. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. And he does.
• 40:02
  I do exactly what he has been doing for 20 years.
• 40:06
  So when I speak to places, I'm speaking almost
• 40:10
  a mirror image of Bob Berg. Wow. Awesome. I forgot
• 40:14
  to mention when I go somewhere. I think we're
• 40:19
  a big Easterseals contributor for the corporate
• 40:22
  offices. We've been doing it for 50 years. We're
• 40:24
  doing it for 45 years. So when I get invited
• 40:26
  to an Easterseals event, because last year we
• 40:28
  donated almost $28 ,000, they'll comp me a table.
• 40:31
  So I'll bring some of the top agents too, but
• 40:33
  I'll also bring some of my business partners.
• 40:35
  When I say partners, I don't mean... let's just
• 40:39
  say affiliate, not even affiliate, somebody,
• 40:41
  people I trust. So I'll bring my mortgage broker
• 40:44
  with me, sorry, my mortgage banker with me, not
• 40:46
  a broker. And so when I'm talking to the waiter,
• 40:48
  because that's maybe one of the loaners out there,
• 40:50
  and I'm like, have you thought about it? Do you
• 40:52
  own it already? Because I'm in real estate. No,
• 40:54
  I don't know yet. Have you think about buying?
• 40:56
  He goes, yeah. I said, you know what? You got
• 40:57
  to speak to this right there at the meeting.
• 40:59
  I'll be Sean or Rick or Shane, come over. Talk
• 41:02
  to this guy. Let's get him pre -approved. He
• 41:04
  wants to buy. His lease is coming up in six months.
• 41:06
  And I bring the connection together right then
• 41:08
  and there. I don't wait. So I'll bring an inspector.
• 41:10
  Sometimes I'll bring a handyman. I'll bring my
• 41:12
  insurance guy. I rotate them. And you never know
• 41:15
  who you're going to find right then and there.
• 41:16
  So don't wait. If you have the opportunity to,
• 41:19
  even like you said, Michael, you met somebody
• 41:21
  across the room. Wait, I just met somebody. You
• 41:23
  two need to talk. I'm sure you've done that many
• 41:25
  times. Many times, many times. And when you said
• 41:28
  you approach that loner, that person by themselves,
• 41:32
  they're probably an introvert, right? They're
• 41:34
  afraid to go out to the room. So the first thing
• 41:37
  you do is you go to that other person. And again,
• 41:41
  you're giving, right? So you're saying, hey,
• 41:43
  what's your name? Oh, you know something? That's
• 41:46
  a really nice blazer you have on. Or you know
• 41:49
  what? I like your shoes. And that breaks the
• 41:51
  ice immediately. Pay them a compliment. Pay them
• 41:54
  a compliment. Absolutely. And then they start
• 41:56
  talking. OK, so what's the biggest networking
• 42:00
  lesson you've learned from your own business
• 42:03
  journey that you wish you had known earlier?
• 42:07
  The data most just don't be applied to real estate,
• 42:11
  but applies to any business. How many people
• 42:14
  have I given my card to but never collected anything
• 42:17
  from? If you don't control the data or retrieve
• 42:21
  the data, you're like waiting for a phone that's
• 42:24
  never going to ring. And that's like a strategy
• 42:26
  for 50%. 49 % of the realtors, Michael, in this
• 42:30
  country did one deal or no deals last year. 49%.
• 42:35
  Half of our industry, more than half is failing
• 42:37
  because some do two or three deals. It doesn't
• 42:40
  pay the bills. So they're waiting for something
• 42:42
  to happen. For something to happen, some movement
• 42:44
  has to occur. And to me, I really believe that.
• 42:47
  You have to not just get the business card, not
• 42:52
  just create the relationship first or get the
• 42:54
  business card, but maybe right then and there.
• 42:56
  You know what I just learned from this conference?
• 42:57
  I went away on Monday, Tuesday to the Realtors
• 42:59
  Association. I went because. i needed to get
• 43:03
  away and sharpen my pencil up here sharpen my
• 43:06
  brain and i took a linkedin actually a technology
• 43:09
  class and he focused on linkedin and the next
• 43:11
  door app the one who navigates us with our neighbors
• 43:14
  and boy in linkedin in the first five minutes
• 43:17
  it was worth the week it was worth the two days
• 43:19
  i spent there because he just showed me that
• 43:21
  you just walk up to somebody and how many people
• 43:23
  have linkedin profiles so many And you just click
• 43:27
  on search in this little upper right corner where
• 43:29
  it gives your QR code and you scan it and you
• 43:31
  connect right to each other right then and there.
• 43:33
  Now you've got them. Of course, I had a little
• 43:36
  word like Auburndale, Florida, because I need
• 43:39
  to refer this person, like to this person in
• 43:41
  the future. Oh, what's their name? But as you
• 43:45
  maybe, especially with Florida Realtors, I've
• 43:48
  met people from every county, every city. But
• 43:52
  taking the time, and it does take time to, Either
• 43:56
  if you have this game, how many people couldn't
• 43:57
  log in during that speaker? They couldn't even
• 43:59
  log into their LinkedIn account. Two ladies to
• 44:01
  the left and right of me, it took them half the
• 44:04
  class to figure out how to do that, which was
• 44:05
  a waste of time. So you need to be up on the
• 44:08
  networking tool available to you, at least the
• 44:10
  best ones. I discovered today for the first time,
• 44:12
  I have 2020 LinkedIn connections, which I had
• 44:15
  no idea. It just says 500 plus, but you know
• 44:18
  what? Get with technology even a little bit and
• 44:20
  save it appropriately so you can find them again.
• 44:23
  Use anything you want. blingstone hat lady i'll
• 44:27
  never forget that one from this weekend rhinestone
• 44:29
  hat lady yeah and works it just because you have
• 44:33
  the electronic business cards you have regular
• 44:36
  business cards you have the linkedin so there
• 44:39
  are a number of ways that you can stay connected
• 44:43
  and if you receive that that physical business
• 44:47
  card. Here's a note. Here's a little trick that
• 44:49
  I learned a hundred years ago. And that I tell
• 44:53
  every workshop, every client that I coach, take
• 44:57
  that business card, write down the date. What,
• 45:00
  when the date, let's say you're in an event,
• 45:02
  the date of the event, write down the name of
• 45:05
  the event, and then something you talked about.
• 45:08
  So you have all that information on the back
• 45:11
  of the card so that in two weeks, you're going
• 45:13
  to look at that card and say, I don't know who
• 45:15
  this is. You turn it over and say, that's who
• 45:18
  it is. But if you follow up, again, I have a
• 45:22
  whole follow -up sequence. If you use the sequence,
• 45:26
  you'll remember it right away. It's funny you
• 45:28
  say follow -up in the office, although the boss
• 45:31
  doesn't like it. We say, F you, follow -up. If
• 45:34
  you don't follow -up, you're not going to get
• 45:36
  anywhere with it. And Mike, you're right. because
• 45:38
  the office gave me one of my cards and I used
• 45:40
  it over the weekend. Just put it under the phone
• 45:42
  and it gives you the link and you download my
• 45:44
  contact. I don't know how they did it. It's not
• 45:46
  magic, it's technology. But every one of our
• 45:49
  realtors gets one. So in case they're out, they
• 45:51
  could just walk up to somebody and talk, hey,
• 45:53
  here's my information. But again, as important
• 45:55
  as it is to get information, if you're not getting
• 45:57
  information, I don't want to have a card on me
• 46:00
  right now. Let them write on the back of your
• 46:01
  card. Or some agents keep little pads. We give
• 46:04
  these teeny little pads that fit in a purse or
• 46:06
  a back pocket. It's just recycled paper. And
• 46:09
  you know what? They take them with them. Do you
• 46:12
  have a pen for your pocketbook? Yeah, I have
• 46:14
  a pen. Okay, good. It sets the basics. But you
• 46:16
  know what? I can't tell you how many people say,
• 46:18
  oh, one guy, he was so proud. He gave 20 business
• 46:21
  cards out a day, every day. He was like the worst
• 46:23
  producer ever. He was busy giving cards out.
• 46:26
  I have to tell you, and this is a little note
• 46:29
  you can tell all of your agents. It's not as
• 46:33
  important. You say, how big is your network?
• 46:35
  My network is X amount of thousands of people.
• 46:37
  Okay. How many people, how many networks are
• 46:42
  you in? It's a mindset shift. Exactly. And you
• 46:46
  have to think about, wait a second, I can reach
• 46:49
  out to anybody. No. How many people can reach
• 46:52
  out to you? Exactly. And that's where you have
• 46:55
  to think about it. I had a gentleman, real quick,
• 46:57
  I had a gentleman that joined my office, and
• 47:00
  he was like, at the interview, he says, I have
• 47:02
  a list. I said, okay. And he says, it's 100 ,000
• 47:05
  names. And I said, okay. And he says, so what's
• 47:07
  it worth to the company? I said, to the company?
• 47:10
  I said, we don't work your list. you don't understand
• 47:13
  henry these are just every person with such a
• 47:15
  such a group and there's nuggets in there i said
• 47:17
  you need to be the gold miner i told him you
• 47:20
  need to get through that list and bring it down
• 47:22
  to 200 plus or minus people that know you like
• 47:25
  you trust you enough to use to recommend you
• 47:28
  he was like the list is i agree a list is nothing
• 47:30
  unless you would do something with it i told
• 47:32
  him and you know what he soon thereafter quit
• 47:34
  He said, you don't see my value. I said, oh,
• 47:36
  no, you don't see your value. And you don't want
• 47:38
  to do the work that it requires to bring it down
• 47:41
  to quality, not quantity. Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 47:44
  And what you said, know you like you and trust
• 47:46
  you, then they'll do business with you. And that
• 47:50
  list, everybody knew you because you were on
• 47:54
  the list or whatever. But then you have to narrow
• 47:56
  it down a little bit to you like you. That narrowed
• 47:59
  your list down. Trust you. Now, you brought that
• 48:02
  list from 100 ,000 down to 200. And that's the
• 48:06
  list that you need. So you're right. He's got
• 48:09
  to be the person to be the gold miner and to
• 48:11
  break that list down to 200. And then that's
• 48:14
  something you can work with. But until then,
• 48:18
  it's not really worth anything. Passion seems
• 48:22
  to be a driving force in your success. How can
• 48:26
  professionals use their passion as a tool to
• 48:30
  attract the right connections? So passion is,
• 48:35
  first of all, you have to be in a position. You
• 48:39
  have to be in a career that you can be passionate
• 48:43
  about. Because one thing my dad taught me. He
• 48:47
  said, look son, always do your best. And I added,
• 48:50
  never give up. And also, you need to like what
• 48:53
  you do. And you need to feel you bring value
• 48:56
  to people's lives. And I know that passion. People
• 49:01
  always don't find their passion in what to do.
• 49:02
  Michael, you do. I do. We know what we're passionate
• 49:05
  about. And if I tell people every day, mostly
• 49:08
  when I'm interviewing new realtors, I'm not the
• 49:10
  recruiter. We have a director of career development
• 49:13
  that does that for me. But I come into the interview
• 49:16
  to meet them. And I'll say, look, I don't know
• 49:19
  what I want to be when I grow up. But I'm still
• 49:21
  having a lot of fun after 41 years. So I still
• 49:24
  have time to think about that. And everybody
• 49:25
  laughs. But you know what? i'm doing what i was
• 49:28
  meant to do i know that i've never i didn't waver
• 49:32
  six months my first six months of my career i
• 49:35
  wavered on on that because my first three deals
• 49:38
  in contract once you have a real estate contract
• 49:40
  statistically more than half the time you're
• 49:42
  gonna close my first three deals in contract
• 49:45
  fell apart so i went to my dad it was living
• 49:47
  at home in the basement or whatever and i said
• 49:49
  dad i don't know if real estate's for me he goes
• 49:51
  son you just started you need to add you to keep
• 49:54
  learning you need to you know you need to get
• 49:56
  out there you need to follow what your bosses
• 49:58
  tell you and apply what you're learning and he
• 50:01
  said don't i'm not gonna you're not gonna start
• 50:03
  i didn't even say i'm not gonna he goes don't
• 50:05
  stop and i just took that was that became my
• 50:07
  driving force that when things go sideways when
• 50:10
  it seems like it's half full things happen for
• 50:13
  a reason and sometimes we can't figure out why
• 50:15
  don't even look back try to figure out why just
• 50:18
  strive forward continue to do your best work
• 50:22
  harder than everybody else. There's so many things
• 50:24
  that guide me that I've learned over the years.
• 50:27
  But the biggest challenge I see is people jumping
• 50:29
  around from career to career and looking for,
• 50:32
  and some people never find what they're looking
• 50:34
  for. And it's not always about the money. As
• 50:37
  a matter of fact, I've had opportunity to make
• 50:38
  more money from other opportunities that have
• 50:41
  come since I'm here almost 20 years at this office.
• 50:44
  And I think there's a price, but I guarantee
• 50:47
  you, it's going to be seven digits. So nobody's
• 50:51
  offered that yet. It's so true. It's so true.
• 50:55
  And a lot of what you just said, I learned from
• 50:58
  the military about keeping it forward, keeping
• 51:01
  straight, keeping consistent, never give up,
• 51:04
  all that kind of stuff. And it's just, it's true,
• 51:08
  but I have to put my own spin on it and I have
• 51:12
  to feel it inside. I can't just hear somebody
• 51:15
  telling me. I have to feel it from the inside.
• 51:19
  And when I found my passion, now I found this
• 51:23
  back in New York when I was doing mortgages and
• 51:26
  everything, I felt that I was the person out
• 51:28
  there talking and explaining, doing the first
• 51:32
  time homebuyer seminars and things like that
• 51:34
  with the realtors. I was doing all that. So back
• 51:37
  then I found the passion. I worked through different
• 51:40
  career paths before that, before where I am now.
• 51:45
  Now is where I found my passion, but I was 60
• 51:50
  years old before I was actually able to take
• 51:53
  it and run with it. So I know what you're talking
• 51:57
  about. I hear you. Okay. So networking often
• 52:00
  comes down to consistency. I just spoke about
• 52:03
  that. How do you keep showing up and staying
• 52:05
  top of mind in relationships, even when life
• 52:09
  gets busy? Okay, so. some basic things right
• 52:14
  and i can't remember who told me this it was
• 52:15
  a woman basketball coach for a college team i
• 52:18
  apologize it was a long time ago so i just took
• 52:21
  some i always try to take one thing away or two
• 52:23
  things she gave me a few things all right first
• 52:26
  of all make your bed every day make your bed
• 52:30
  every day nothing worse than coming home to a
• 52:32
  messy bed right nancy and i make it she makes
• 52:34
  it we make it together this morning we made the
• 52:36
  bed together we're out we're out up 5 45 we're
• 52:39
  out of bed by six bed is made we're having breakfast
• 52:42
  she's on the road by seven o 'clock and so i'm
• 52:45
  in the office by 7 0 5 because i live 1 .7 miles
• 52:49
  as a crow flies to the office and so you got
• 52:52
  to get up i tell everybody you got to dress up
• 52:54
  and you got to show up today i thought i'd walk
• 52:58
  the mall to see if i can meet people you know
• 53:00
  what it's that's not i have strategy sessions
• 53:02
  with my agents goals and strategies i do everyone
• 53:05
  gets a one -on -one once a year and then we can
• 53:07
  tweak it during the year but it's not just getting
• 53:10
  up dressing up showing up but doing productive
• 53:11
  activities so the biggest joke with nancy and
• 53:14
  i is we're so busy on weekends with our grandson
• 53:16
  and ethan and nancy's mom and our friends and
• 53:19
  with pickleball and poker that i go to work monday
• 53:22
  morning just to relax seriously i'm like the
• 53:26
  only guy that thinks that way they're like really
• 53:27
  i'm like yes like monday morning to me is and
• 53:30
  i know it's going to get busy so i don't even
• 53:32
  have to schedule something i typically will i
• 53:35
  have appointments of course I block this out.
• 53:38
  Oh, I time block. And I'm really good at time
• 53:40
  blocking. Again, Floyd Wickman, a wonderful master
• 53:43
  trainer for realtors. And I don't have two schedules.
• 53:46
  I'm one person, all right? So I color code my
• 53:48
  time blocking. And the only bad thing about time
• 53:52
  blocking is you need to leave time for the unexpected.
• 53:55
  Like me, I have an open door policy, except I
• 53:58
  never put a note on my door unless I'm doing
• 54:00
  a recording like today. I have an open door policy.
• 54:02
  Nothing going on here but the work. And so people
• 54:05
  could just knock and come in. And I leave my
• 54:07
  door open most of the time anyway. But the unexpected,
• 54:11
  the people like, oh, you got a minute? Like yesterday,
• 54:13
  I just did it early this morning. A guy hands
• 54:16
  me, after our sales meeting, a packet. And he
• 54:18
  said, hey, you got some time? I'd like you to
• 54:20
  go over my packet for me as a realtor and the
• 54:23
  services I'm going to offer. I'm like, yeah.
• 54:26
  I look, it's 11 pages. I said, no, I don't have
• 54:30
  time to do that because I already had somebody
• 54:31
  waiting for me. But make a time with me. In the
• 54:33
  meantime, give it to me. And so early this morning,
• 54:37
  because like I said, it was here at 7 .05 or
• 54:39
  so. I edited, I said to him, it's going to be
• 54:41
  red or blue pen. You're fine. He goes, yeah,
• 54:43
  man, whatever pen you like. All right, no problem.
• 54:45
  I said, don't think I'm grading you. I'm just
• 54:47
  going to give you my opinion. So apparently he
• 54:49
  used ChatGPT because it had a lot of great points,
• 54:52
  but he hadn't made a change yet. And so I suggested,
• 54:58
  I love using the who, what, where, when, why,
• 55:01
  how. You just don't state something without giving
• 55:06
  a feature, without showing them or telling them
• 55:08
  what the benefit is and asking questions or telling
• 55:10
  people why. I didn't rip it apart, but I spent
• 55:14
  a lot of ink, maybe 15 minutes running through
• 55:16
  it. It's going to be a multiple draft situation,
• 55:20
  but it's like being there for people even when
• 55:22
  you don't even have the time sometimes. transition
• 55:27
  to calendly like you have i'm afraid of people
• 55:30
  booking up my whole day because it's an open
• 55:33
  door policy and so i and i you know the only
• 55:36
  thing unequal is taking equal unequal people
• 55:40
  treating unequal people equally meaning that
• 55:43
  if i've got like a top producer in my office
• 55:45
  that needs a minute and i look and i realize
• 55:48
  it's not going to be a minute i'm going to give
• 55:51
  them an hour if i have somebody that's been with
• 55:53
  me for a while and that consistently doesn't
• 55:56
  show up or doesn't do our training or doesn't
• 56:00
  come to me with questions doesn't light up the
• 56:02
  production board and they need say they say i
• 56:05
  need an hour i'm gonna tell me what's going on
• 56:07
  and then they'll tell me yeah i just need to
• 56:09
  know how to get started they're not getting an
• 56:11
  hour from me all right they're getting less time
• 56:13
  for me because i need them it needs to be a two
• 56:17
  -way community not only communication but action
• 56:18
  plan all right so we'll have the conversation
• 56:20
  15 20 minutes max and they'll walk away with
• 56:23
  an activity and i expect them to that they chose
• 56:26
  not me that they chose and so come back to me
• 56:29
  hey let's reschedule our next appointment as
• 56:31
  soon as you're done people try to book me in
• 56:34
  advance a week or two in advance for something
• 56:36
  that we don't even know what the topic is yet
• 56:38
  they don't get that with me do you do what you've
• 56:40
  got to do and come back and let's debrief let's
• 56:42
  tweak and it's got to be that you have to know
• 56:45
  who your customer is and for me my internal customer
• 56:48
  my realtors are and my staff are really my customers
• 56:51
  and i put myself at the bottom of the pyramid
• 56:54
  i'm the support system do you know do you know
• 56:58
  what oh my god limonis marcus limonis the prophet
• 57:02
  on tv he fixes this fixes but he was the guest
• 57:06
  speaker and he was literally six feet at the
• 57:09
  convention this week. He was six feet from my
• 57:12
  aisle. And he said, draw a mountain. Every one
• 57:14
  of you should draw a mountain right now. And
• 57:17
  then place yourself on the mountain. Where do
• 57:20
  you see yourself in your career on that mountain?
• 57:22
  Michael, where do you see yourself in your career
• 57:24
  on the mountain? Where do I see myself? If you
• 57:28
  drew a mountain right now. If I drew a mountain
• 57:30
  right now, I'd see myself about halfway up. That's
• 57:34
  good. That's Marcus. He was standing like 10
• 57:36
  feet away. That's Marcus Lomonas. Yep. I felt
• 57:39
  I was closer to the top. And as markets met realtors,
• 57:43
  he started explaining some things. And he said,
• 57:45
  who's at the bottom now? And people came from
• 57:47
  the bottom. He'd come up to the stage, come up
• 57:48
  to the stage. And it was really interesting.
• 57:50
  And the best thing about what he talked about
• 57:52
  was that some people at the bottom of the mountain
• 57:55
  maybe need to change careers. If they're not
• 57:56
  prepared to keep moving. This woman was 20 years
• 57:59
  in the business, a realtor, Mike, on stage with
• 58:00
  2 ,000 people to say, I'm thinking about becoming
• 58:03
  a mortgage lender, broker. I'm thinking about
• 58:05
  it. She's at the bottom of the real estate mountain.
• 58:07
  So the idea for him was he moved on from her.
• 58:10
  If she's there and she thinks she's there, not
• 58:12
  everybody can be helped. You have to be true
• 58:14
  to yourself. It wasn't her passion. She feels
• 58:16
  like she's being taken advantage by customers.
• 58:18
  She may be in the wrong business at this point
• 58:21
  in her career, right? And I have people starting
• 58:23
  now at the bottom. My job is, now I learned,
• 58:26
  I'm not at the top anymore for me. My job is
• 58:28
  to hang out at the bottom and push those people
• 58:31
  up to the top with my guidance. and my help and
• 58:34
  my leadership and my coaching now once they're
• 58:37
  stuck once they're stuck and they don't want
• 58:40
  to take my advice any longer or they're taking
• 58:42
  other people's advice that and then they said
• 58:44
  what did they say or how did oh and i said you
• 58:46
  just spoke to a guy that has never done a deal
• 58:48
  in my office and he gave you advice like you
• 58:51
  should be talking to me not the guy next to you
• 58:53
  you just don't know i hope that answers your
• 58:55
  question but i feel like it's appropriate to
• 58:57
  what we're talking about today It is. And when
• 59:00
  you said, where am I on the mountain? I pictured
• 59:03
  myself because I reached down the mountain because
• 59:06
  I'm helping other people succeed. I'm helping
• 59:09
  them come up to your level. Right. And I'm also
• 59:13
  reaching up because I have a mentor and things
• 59:17
  because I need to get further in my. what I do.
• 59:21
  So I feel I'm right in the middle because I'm
• 59:24
  a mentor to others, but I need a mentor to get
• 59:27
  further ahead. So that's why I put myself. I
• 59:29
  love managing the mountain. That's my job. Yeah.
• 59:32
  Okay, good. So can you share a time when networking
• 59:36
  directly led to a breakthrough opportunity or
• 59:39
  saved you from a major setback? Let's talk about,
• 59:43
  let's not talk about setbacks because I want
• 59:45
  to think the positive. Yeah. Let me tell you
• 59:46
  a quick story that happened over the last 14
• 59:50
  months. One of my best friend's in -laws, I met
• 59:53
  them at a wedding, and it ends up that the wife
• 59:57
  went to Randall -Paul High School and graduated,
• 1:00:00
  actually, sorry, Kakia with us. I don't remember
• 1:00:03
  her name, but I asked her about you and she didn't
• 1:00:06
  remember you. We had big classes. Her name is
• 1:00:09
  Cindy. It's funny because I felt bad because
• 1:00:12
  I didn't really remember her. I wish you remembered
• 1:00:14
  her last name. I'm going to figure it out and
• 1:00:17
  let you get back to you on that. Basically, she's
• 1:00:20
  a long -term spouse, I think 20 something years
• 1:00:23
  with Larry. And Larry started talking to me and
• 1:00:25
  he said, yeah, I'm in a lumber business and in
• 1:00:28
  this place in New York, this and that. And he
• 1:00:31
  says, I'm in contract to sell it. I'm retiring
• 1:00:32
  after 30 years of being employed and running
• 1:00:35
  it, then owning it. And now I'm going to be selling
• 1:00:38
  the business and the land. And it was more than
• 1:00:41
  $10 million. And I said, wow, if there's anything
• 1:00:44
  I can do to help you. Yeah, you could. He says,
• 1:00:46
  I want to relocate my staff. I'm a mother and
• 1:00:48
  her child to Florida. I think I owe that to them.
• 1:00:52
  And I was like, yeah, I can help in any which
• 1:00:54
  way you like. So he was thinking about maybe
• 1:00:56
  a small business. And I kept following up from
• 1:00:58
  that perspective, thinking that he would think
• 1:01:01
  of Mount Me when it came to the buying opportunity.
• 1:01:03
  For whatever reason, people pivot sometimes and
• 1:01:05
  never tell you. He ended up going and spending
• 1:01:07
  this amount of money with a commercial broker
• 1:01:09
  because I've been known for. residential and
• 1:01:12
  I'd done some commercial in my life. But so he
• 1:01:15
  had spent 9 million on commercial properties
• 1:01:17
  of the 11 million that he ended up selling a
• 1:01:18
  property for. And he had to do it on a 1031 exchange
• 1:01:21
  because he wanted to defer the taxes. And then
• 1:01:24
  I heard from my buddy, yeah, Larry closed on
• 1:01:26
  $11 million in real estate. And I was like, wow,
• 1:01:30
  I'm surprised I didn't get the call. Long story
• 1:01:32
  short, I get a call from Larry about seven or
• 1:01:37
  eight months after. He closed on the property.
• 1:01:39
  Oh, and $2 million was left over. So the commercial
• 1:01:42
  realtor sold him a residential house in my marketplace.
• 1:01:45
  And so Larry called me. Hey, Henry, so -and -so
• 1:01:48
  says you're really a good guy and you can help
• 1:01:51
  me with a rental. And I'm thinking. F you Larry.
• 1:01:55
  Now I'm thinking, follow up. No, I thought all
• 1:01:57
  these things in my head. And my answer was, of
• 1:02:00
  course, what do you need? And I went to the property
• 1:02:02
  and it was 2 .1. I think he paid one, almost
• 1:02:04
  2 million and it needed some work. And he said,
• 1:02:06
  what do you mean? And I went through the property
• 1:02:07
  with him, very detailed. And I got a guy, one
• 1:02:10
  of my handymen coming out for a couple of weeks
• 1:02:12
  and doing what he had to do. And we finally got
• 1:02:14
  it rented and he hated being a residential landlord.
• 1:02:17
  Just hated it. He really degraded buying it.
• 1:02:19
  There's timeframes involved. So long story short.
• 1:02:22
  he he said i want to get out of now that we have
• 1:02:24
  it rented as soon as the lease comes up would
• 1:02:26
  you list it for me for sale yes larry of course
• 1:02:29
  and so the first weekend had at the market nine
• 1:02:31
  showings and full price offer 2 .1 million and
• 1:02:34
  we closed about by the way i never did a million
• 1:02:37
  dollar deal in my career 41 years till there
• 1:02:41
  you go till what about closed four weeks ago
• 1:02:44
  yeah then He says, hey, what about helping me
• 1:02:46
  with a 1031 exchange to buy a commercial property?
• 1:02:49
  And now we're closing that commercial property
• 1:02:51
  for multi -millions also. Well, you know what?
• 1:02:55
  Sometimes you just, like you said, you put yourself
• 1:02:57
  out there, bite your tongue occasionally, people
• 1:03:00
  make decisions and make yourself available. I
• 1:03:04
  got the call. That's when you get the call one
• 1:03:06
  day, that's the really good call. You're like,
• 1:03:08
  yeah, whatever it takes. Don't think about, yeah,
• 1:03:11
  but what about the 300 ,000 you lost? And you
• 1:03:13
  know what? Stop. You can't fix what happened
• 1:03:16
  in the past. You got to start today and what's
• 1:03:18
  going to happen tomorrow. And that's all I focused
• 1:03:21
  on. And it's been a banner year for me. Hey,
• 1:03:23
  you don't know what the other person is going
• 1:03:26
  through. And you don't know what made him decide
• 1:03:29
  to go with this other person. But you kept your
• 1:03:33
  head about it. And the guy just said, look, I
• 1:03:35
  have a rental or this or that. And it's small
• 1:03:37
  potatoes. But you did it to such a degree. that
• 1:03:42
  he said oh he must really know what he's talking
• 1:03:44
  about let me give him something else and that
• 1:03:47
  led into something even bigger you have to really
• 1:03:50
  take what's given to you but think about what
• 1:03:52
  the other person is going through and just take
• 1:03:55
  it and just you never know because you don't
• 1:03:58
  know what you don't know the big fish he was
• 1:04:00
  the one of the big fish he knew more than me
• 1:04:02
  and he knew it and i and i admitted hey i'm going
• 1:04:04
  to need to look into that you know what i mean
• 1:04:06
  so i had to brush up pretty quickly but he never
• 1:04:08
  held it against me so if you ever think there's
• 1:04:10
  a somebody you really want to do business with
• 1:04:12
  and maybe have a personal relationship with become
• 1:04:14
  a resource for just become a resource for them
• 1:04:16
  absolutely eventually the offer you can say don't
• 1:04:19
  be afraid don't be afraid to try me i'm like
• 1:04:21
  i'm going to give them i always tell people if
• 1:04:23
  you recommend me they're going to get friends
• 1:04:24
  and family They're going to get friends and family.
• 1:04:26
  White glove treatment. I'm going to I'm going
• 1:04:28
  to you're going to make you proud of the service
• 1:04:29
  I provide to them. OK, good. All right. So what
• 1:04:34
  advice do you have for people who struggle with
• 1:04:37
  networking because they feel it's forced or uncomfortable?
• 1:04:42
  So I was one of those people for a long time.
• 1:04:45
  And so one of my director of career development,
• 1:04:47
  Connie, she said, come on, let's go out to one
• 1:04:49
  of those networking events. And we had a little
• 1:04:51
  game. We said she said, let's just actually.
• 1:04:54
  Both of us came up with it. Let's go opposite
• 1:04:56
  directions and meet in the middle and then go
• 1:04:59
  reverse. And so it was really fun. We also had
• 1:05:03
  this thing, how many, who can get the most business
• 1:05:05
  cards? I'm very competitive. I don't know if
• 1:05:07
  you could tell that. So business, so I was on
• 1:05:08
  a mission. I had to collect business cards because
• 1:05:11
  she's very competitive too. And I think we're
• 1:05:13
  pretty close. I think we were off by one when
• 1:05:15
  we met in the middle, we talked, we went back
• 1:05:17
  out. It was a great, it was a, it wasn't, it
• 1:05:19
  was, and so go with an accountability partner.
• 1:05:22
  you need to have an accountability partner if
• 1:05:25
  you really especially if you're uncomfortable
• 1:05:26
  if you're now that i'm comfortable i can go by
• 1:05:28
  myself but it's not as fun as when i go with
• 1:05:31
  other people and they clump you know what clumping
• 1:05:33
  is when these realtors stick together i'm like
• 1:05:35
  are you kidding me there's 30 other tables and
• 1:05:39
  who could you meet out there i want you to walk
• 1:05:41
  around and you know what they have fear right
• 1:05:44
  false evidence appearing real fear which is crazy
• 1:05:48
  nothing's going to kill them by saying hi I'm
• 1:05:51
  Henry. Hi, I'm Michael. Hi, Michael. Where are
• 1:05:54
  you from? What do you do? What type of work?
• 1:05:57
  Anything. Open up an open -ended question. Who,
• 1:06:01
  what, where, when, why, how? You can't answer
• 1:06:04
  yes or no. Are you having a good time? No, I
• 1:06:06
  go through, there's a large part of what I teach
• 1:06:09
  about introverts and extroverts. And that goes
• 1:06:13
  along with a networking event because I always
• 1:06:16
  tell extroverts to go alone. You don't want to
• 1:06:19
  share. your time or share a meeting or anything
• 1:06:22
  else. You don't want that type of backing. You
• 1:06:24
  want to go out and you want to talk with as many
• 1:06:26
  people, build as many relationships as you can.
• 1:06:31
  If you're slightly introverted, then you can
• 1:06:34
  bring somebody with you, somebody that really
• 1:06:37
  knows you, knows about you and everything else.
• 1:06:39
  So there's two different ways to look at it,
• 1:06:42
  but that's exactly right. So let's bring this
• 1:06:45
  podcast full circle. Okay. If you could leave
• 1:06:49
  our listeners with one networking principle that
• 1:06:53
  has carried you from middle school friendships
• 1:06:55
  to a successful career, what would it be? It's
• 1:07:00
  a long play. This is a long play. There's no
• 1:07:02
  quick fix to anything you're doing. I think you
• 1:07:05
  need to start. And if you're not happy with your
• 1:07:08
  making, you need to hit the reset button. All
• 1:07:09
  right. And you need to look at. Not only what
• 1:07:12
  you're doing and if you like where you're working,
• 1:07:14
  your career, what's it going to take you to get
• 1:07:16
  to the next level and emulate people that are.
• 1:07:19
  I joined a group of managers and now I've been
• 1:07:22
  invited to a bigger group now. So swimming with
• 1:07:24
  them. I'm the little guy in the big pool. So
• 1:07:27
  you always have to, if you want to improve your
• 1:07:29
  tennis game or your pickleball game, I play all
• 1:07:30
  the pickleball. You got to play with better players.
• 1:07:33
  And figure out a way to meet these people. It
• 1:07:35
  could be on the golf course. It could be on pickleball.
• 1:07:37
  It could be on a bowling league. I don't care.
• 1:07:39
  But network with other people that are successful.
• 1:07:41
  I don't know if I mentioned my, occasionally
• 1:07:43
  I call upon SCORE. Familiar with SCORE? Business
• 1:07:46
  professionals that are retired, but occasionally
• 1:07:49
  that's really good to me. I think that you need
• 1:07:51
  to just decide. And I'll end with this. One of
• 1:07:56
  my senior realtors, West Point graduate in his
• 1:07:59
  80s, shows up every day. And, and he's a military
• 1:08:03
  guy. He thinks that way, but he has two things
• 1:08:05
  he does. And I'm not following one of them today,
• 1:08:07
  but he, just for him to remember the day or people
• 1:08:11
  say, how's it going? Today is Thursday, right?
• 1:08:13
  No, it's what day is today? Yeah. Today's Thursday.
• 1:08:17
  Okay. Just terrific. Today. Hey, how you doing?
• 1:08:21
  Terrific. I'm terrific. How about you? Be positive.
• 1:08:24
  Right? So Monday's marvelous. Tuesday's terrific.
• 1:08:27
  Sorry. Tremendous. Wednesday's wonderful. Terrific
• 1:08:31
  and fantastic. Monday, Tuesday, come up with
• 1:08:34
  a positive word. How's it going? How's it going?
• 1:08:37
  And come up with the answer. He also does a second
• 1:08:40
  thing. He dresses. He doesn't want to have to
• 1:08:42
  think about what he's going to wear for the day.
• 1:08:44
  So I'm wearing Monday's shirt, white. It gets
• 1:08:47
  a little darker, beige on Tuesday. Wednesday,
• 1:08:50
  we wear red or blue, depending upon who's in
• 1:08:53
  office. Thursday, gray, and Friday's black. That's
• 1:08:57
  it. And brand yourself. Every day, I'm branded.
• 1:09:00
  And I get, I'm walking into Publix and people
• 1:09:03
  say, excuse me, where's the milk? I'm like, come
• 1:09:05
  on, I'll sell you a house on the way to the milk.
• 1:09:07
  You have to have some key line. Oh no, I'm so
• 1:09:10
  sorry. No, come on. I know the store like in
• 1:09:12
  the back of my hand. Be public, be social, be
• 1:09:15
  a walking billboard and always have the, when
• 1:09:18
  somebody just even looks at my badge, I wear
• 1:09:21
  it every day. I always have a line. Can I sell
• 1:09:23
  you a house today? Oh no, I already own something.
• 1:09:25
  I'm like, what about an investment property?
• 1:09:27
  If you have maybe a friend or relative that might
• 1:09:29
  be looking, the grant money out there is unbelievable.
• 1:09:33
  It's like, am I robotic? I try not to be. But
• 1:09:36
  do I follow some regimen with regarding words
• 1:09:39
  like terrific, tremendous, wonderful, marvelous,
• 1:09:43
  fantastic? Yeah. Because it just helps me realize
• 1:09:47
  some people can't even find the word sometimes.
• 1:09:50
  You know what I mean? Even explaining what we
• 1:09:52
  do as a real estate, what makes you different?
• 1:09:54
  It's exposure. That's the word I use. Because
• 1:09:56
  where Century 20 was the biggest global brand
• 1:09:58
  with 83 countries and 25 % of the buyers in Florida
• 1:10:02
  are foreign nationals, that's why you need somebody
• 1:10:04
  like me. Your elevator speech, right? Yeah, yeah,
• 1:10:08
  absolutely. And there's something to be said
• 1:10:10
  for branding yourself, okay? By you wearing those
• 1:10:15
  different colors, the same colors on the same
• 1:10:18
  day during the week, people recognize that. When
• 1:10:22
  you see that accident attorney up on a billboard,
• 1:10:26
  you just see his picture and his name. No contact
• 1:10:28
  information, no anything. That's called branding.
• 1:10:32
  And I've tried to brand myself. So I have to,
• 1:10:36
  if you have a few minutes, I'd love to tell you
• 1:10:38
  a short story about branding. So I got involved
• 1:10:42
  with AI. Right. AI is like the buzzword. And
• 1:10:45
  I write three or four articles a week on three
• 1:10:49
  or four different platforms about networking,
• 1:10:52
  leadership, things like that, all with AI generated
• 1:10:55
  text. But it gets my word out. Now, I've been
• 1:10:59
  doing this for three or four months. So I got
• 1:11:02
  to tell you a funny story. The person who I'm
• 1:11:04
  working with has a partner in California. That
• 1:11:08
  person in California has a partner in Las Vegas.
• 1:11:12
  Because they do shows, right? So one day, his
• 1:11:18
  partner, the partner in California, Abe, was
• 1:11:22
  talking to this person in Las Vegas. And they
• 1:11:25
  were talking about something with AI and everything
• 1:11:27
  else. He goes, wait, I have to stop you for a
• 1:11:29
  second. Who's Michael Foreman? He said, why?
• 1:11:34
  He goes, because his name. for credentials it's
• 1:11:38
  all over the place he is the go -to person for
• 1:11:42
  networking and he goes how do you know it goes
• 1:11:45
  i see it all over the place he goes all right
• 1:11:48
  so this guy in las vegas was talking to a person
• 1:11:52
  in california about me in georgia crazy so it's
• 1:11:57
  absolutely crazy so this is what i did i made
• 1:12:01
  up a t -shirt on the front is my logo on the
• 1:12:04
  back it says Who is Michael Foreman with the
• 1:12:07
  QR code? That's cute. And I'll send you one.
• 1:12:13
  I'm still a large. That's all right. That's where
• 1:12:17
  I'll send you a large. I love it. Who's Michael
• 1:12:19
  Foreman? I love it. But it's great. But you never
• 1:12:22
  know who is going to see it and what they're
• 1:12:25
  going to say. So, Henry, I got to tell you. This
• 1:12:28
  was absolutely fantastic. And I think we can
• 1:12:31
  make this podcast go another two or three hours
• 1:12:34
  just by giving us stories back and forth. Oh,
• 1:12:37
  my God. Okay. But if somebody were to contact
• 1:12:40
  you, what would be the best way that they would
• 1:12:42
  contact you? Even Superman had kryptonite, right?
• 1:12:46
  My kryptonite is my inbox. That's kryptonite
• 1:12:49
  to me. So I'm a texter and I'm a caller. All
• 1:12:53
  right. So 561427. 4 -8 -8 -8. South Florida,
• 1:13:00
  Boynton Beach, 5 -6 -1 -4 -2 -7 -48 -88. That's
• 1:13:05
  it. Direct. And I pick up everybody, except for
• 1:13:09
  this call. I'm the guy that picks up and says,
• 1:13:11
  hey, can I call you back? But not today. I turned
• 1:13:13
  it off. Okay, good. All right. I'm on my Gmail,
• 1:13:16
  henrylcaplin at gmail .com. Henry L, the Hulk.
• 1:13:20
  H -L -K, henrylcaplin with a K at gmail .com.
• 1:13:22
  Thanks. Okay, Henry, this was great, and I will
• 1:13:26
  talk to you. Well, hold on, folks. Don't go anywhere.
• 1:13:32
  Let's hear from our sponsors. David Neal, co
• 1:13:36
  -founder, Revved Up Kids. Revved Up Kids is on
• 1:13:39
  a mission to protect children and teens from
• 1:13:42
  sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking.
• 1:13:46
  They provide prevention training programs for
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  children, teens, and adults. To learn more, go
• 1:13:52
  to revvedupkids .org. Henry Kaplan, Century 21.
• 1:13:57
  When it comes to making the biggest financial
• 1:13:59
  decision of your life, leave it in the hands
• 1:14:02
  of a proven professional, Henry Kaplan. Henry
• 1:14:06
  is a global real estate agent with Century 21,
• 1:14:09
  celebrating his 41st year in business. No matter
• 1:14:13
  where you're moving, Henry has the right connections
• 1:14:16
  for you. You can contact Henry at 561 -427 -4888.
• 1:14:23
  A huge thank you to our guests for sharing such...
• 1:14:27
  insights today. And of course, a big shout out
• 1:14:30
  to you, our amazing listeners, for tuning in
• 1:14:33
  and spending your time with us. If you're interested
• 1:14:36
  in my digital courses, being coached or having
• 1:14:40
  me come and talk to your company, just go to
• 1:14:43
  Michael and fill out the request form. Remember,
• 1:14:46
  networking isn't about being perfect. It's about
• 1:14:50
  being present. So take what you've learned today,
• 1:14:53
  get out there and make some meaningful connections.
• 1:14:56
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