Episode Transcript
Adam O'Leary (00:01.335)
If you're a business owner struggling to build a powerful, reliable network that goes beyond just exchanging business cards, then our guest, David Holman is about to give you a simple win you can implement today. David is a connector, composer, and strategist focused on building relationships at the speed of trust. David's so excited to have you here. Looking forward to this episode.
David Homan (00:22.688)
Me too, Adam. Really grateful to be here and for everyone listening.
Adam O'Leary (00:25.973)
Absolutely. So I've heard you discuss how traditional networking often fails because it's focused on transaction rather than trust. So how do we get around this concept of transaction relationships and flip it more to the trust side?
David Homan (00:41.944)
So every business leader who's then become a famous CEO, they have written a book about this, they've talked about the moment of crisis in their business. Every single one without fail, Adam says, I went back to my oldest most trusted relationships. I made a few calls and those people had my back. So this isn't something that I've created in this new novel, new way. It is the oldest adage of business, which is that your relationships.
sustain you, especially when you hit downturns. So what everyone's looking for is what that quick win is, right? Like you talk about these simple wins, but it's not a quick win, right? The simple win, the way I look at it is, if you can build trust with another human being, if you can actually deliver value to them, then what you're essentially doing is taking your time, and in many cases, because you're investing to be at a conference, to get into the right thing, into a team to set something up.
If you go in hoping you're gonna get the deal really quick, you're not gonna get the relationship long-term. But when you come in actually adding value to somebody else first, you can basically have that customer retention for life because you delivered something they could not do themselves without an expectation of return. And what happens is this is the way people fail to understand it. It is not simply then that that person will help you. What you've done is created imprint.
a brand, marketing of being a giver, being high integrity, not being a taker. And then when somebody asks them for something that person needs, if you are indeed the right person, they will be the advocate, the champion for you. They complete that sale. They get you that investment. They get you that positioning because what you did to them through somebody else, they can now come back to do for you.
Adam O'Leary (02:33.396)
So let's talk about that concept of value right there because I've seen people go ahead and I think they're doing it wrong and I have a feeling you're the one doing it right. So let's say if we just have we just met. Okay. So hey David, how are you? Right? Letting how are we going ahead in providing value initially? What does that actually look like?
David Homan (02:52.792)
So two concepts, two of the principles of my book, Orchestrating Connection, I wrote with my co-author, Noah Askin. These are gonna seem very, very antithetical to the way most people would respond to a, do I build an initial business relationship? You asked me that today, sincerely Adam, I'd go honestly, like I'm a wreck, my dad's in hospice. I don't know when his end is, but my brother and my sister and I, our family are like constantly going back and forth and like there might be a...
moment even in this call where you go, hey, my mother's calling. I've been told if she calls, and post a text email while I'm working, like, that's it. Like, I'm sorry, we'll record this later. So like, for me, talking about things with vulnerability isn't, isn't something you take lightly, but it's also something incredibly important. Because then that person you share that with has two choices. They can respond back with empathy and curiosity.
or they can show their true colors. And as I've been going through this journey the last month or so with my father, I have had people who are absolute strangers. This one woman, she preemptively canceled the call the minute I said I might have to go to Florida, something's happening with my dad. She's then followed up with me every four days with stories about how she learned as she was losing her mother, things that she didn't realize then, but knew later. Like, I love this person.
She's going to be a friend for life and I've never met her and never spoken to her. She simply has shown up for me without asking. And this other guy, I canceled with the WhatsApp few days in. The next day after the canceled meeting, he goes, when can we reschedule? Not, what are you doing with Lucy, your father? And I mean, I'm grateful for that to be honest, cause he showed his colors. I responded back, we won't be meeting.
I saved myself half an hour, probably more from it. But this woman, whenever I do take the time, is going to get an hour of my time. I'm going to bend over backwards because if I told that story of what she does to you, you, even not knowing her, would go, well, I want to help that type of person. So we don't place the value on the relationship the same way we place it on the time we spend or the money we spend. But all we do is build relationships. It's what gets us further in life. And so what I would say to everyone is you want to get back to the right way to do it.
David Homan (05:19.735)
Don't genuinely. Don't connect with an agenda. And if you're in the right room, you're never going to figure out who the right person is until they tell you what they need. So why not build the trust first? And if you do this right, repeat, repeat, repeat, you'll have more opportunities come through this approach than you will from handing your card out a hundred times, getting on that stage or hoping that the 50th call you make is the one that's going to land you what you need.
I've built relationships to some of the most prominent, insane to reach humans on the planet by helping them and only asking in return if I can help them more.
Adam O'Leary (06:00.596)
That's amazing. No, and thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that because that is, I remember talking to you about it. It's a very painful thing that you're going through. And I, I understand that concept of vulnerability right there. And I guess as we're kind of looking at this, so there's different sorts of value, I think is one of the biggest things that you're talking about here. And the way that I've looked at this myself too,
David Homan (06:20.813)
Mm-hmm.
Adam O'Leary (06:24.998)
Is that it does come down to the relationship the friendship right? I feel like a lot of the times and especially in b2b It's everything is viewed as a lead everybody's viewed as a transaction, right? How is the pipeline moving and people have almost forgot that? Relationship side of things that friendship side of things so from your side david I guess one of the questions I would have is how important is it to or I guess how do you differentiate? friendship from a lead
Because I know this is something going through somebody's mind, especially in B2B.
David Homan (06:59.607)
Sure, so here's the dichotomy of this, right? Like you and I, everyone listening, we can see through so clearly when somebody wants to work through us to something we have or somebody we know. We're all attuned to it, right? Hey, Adam, I'd love to catch up and get coffee. And you don't even drink coffee or you learn I don't, because I'm a tea drinker. And then we catch up and then 25 minutes in I go, hey, I'm raising it for my startup.
Can you get me this? And it's so disingenuine and the person receiving that literally shies away. And when you're the one doing it to somebody, you think it's gonna work. And when somebody's doing it to you, like all the hairs on your neck stick up that minute. So like, this is the fallacy of is that we all don't want it to happen to us, but I'm gonna do it to you. And so if you just break that cycle and you look at facts, right? Take anyone who's been in.
rising in their career, middle management to C-suite and asked how they got their job at another company. Somebody they used to work with said, hey, you should really call up Adam. Look at him for this role. Somebody that they helped or had an innovation that somebody had respect, that respect is conveyed to somebody else, and then that investor takes your call. In every case where we look at this as what did I get out of it? What did I get through this? We are lying to ourselves that that works because it won't work to us.
but we think it'll work for us. Only way to break that mold is simply to be the one to start to break it. To trust that the relationships you're building, the people you're talking to, with discretion, you couldn't talk to everyone in the company, but if your job is to sell into the HR part and you're talking with the second in charge HR, don't just try to get to their boss. What if they're your advocate? What if you've helped them and then they say, hey, you know, we should look at this company? Because...
this is what they got for us, maybe we should do something for them, but it isn't transactional, it's relational, for which interactions can happen, transactions can occur, but the bond is stronger than that.
Adam O'Leary (09:08.401)
Absolutely. So let's say if somebody meets another person and you're at a conference, let's say, everybody's going ahead, they're networking and things like this, you start talking to somebody, you say, how are you? Like, what do you do? Okay. And we go through this initial type of a conversation saying, how are we going to kind of move through that conversation where we actually know what value to offer? Because a lot of the times when you're first meeting somebody,
Everybody does keep their cards a little bit close to their chest, right? Because the thing is they don't necessarily know who you are. They'll tell you what it is, but they're not going to open up necessarily about their problems. They're not going to tell you all the things that are actually going on, especially in the first two minutes of a conversation. So how can you go about giving that value to somebody in that first, say, two to five minutes when you're first meeting somebody?
David Homan (09:56.791)
So here's what I'd say. Why not make those first two to five minutes personal and useful or elucidating that you shouldn't have talked to that person anymore in the first place, right? Hey, I'm David. I grew up in Florida. I've been in New York 25 years. I have a startup. I worked with Ray Dalio running a film company. I'm telling you all these things about me. How much will you remember? Instead of the fact this is recorded like another time, you'll remember nothing.
But I remember our talk about sports. I remember about you talking about Boston. I remember about me talking about the fact, maybe you remember that like I grew up with the Florida Gators, so I never had a professional team. I just had where Emmett Smith went as a kid. I just had where Randy, I had where all these players went on all these different sports, like looking at the Olympics and being like that guy swam in the Olympic pool I swam in when I was a kid. And so.
If you're gonna have a conversation, it can be about something. Why not make it more personal? It's not this verbal diarrhea version of this, but like, why have a, where are you from? What do you do? Like, I say, what's your passion? I say like, you know, here's what's not going well in my day, my 11 year old, blah, blah, blah. And if you don't care to choose to share back, fantastic. Cause I gave you an opportunity to get past that. And you chose to stay at the...
You know, I mean, had a good flight last night and like my, hotel's comfortable. Have you tried the Hilton Garden Inn? And I'd be like, do you want to remember me as the guy who says, yes, I've also tried the Hilton Garden Inn? Like, no. But if I say to you, I was in this hotel the other day when I was driving back from Florida and I walked into the hotel and it smelled absolutely horrible. And I thought, what is wrong with this? If I came in so late.
This woman was making stuffed cabbage for her family. And if you ever made stuffed cabbage, it smells horrible, but that's my ancestry. And she's like, would you like to try it? And now you're not thinking Hilton gardening in, you're thinking, dude, this dude's Eastern European roots make him love stuffed cabbage. I remember when my grandmother made it. And now who remembers your question? Now we're in something. So my point is why not? Like, what do you have to do? What do you have to risk? Because if what you're risking is your time being wasted.
David Homan (12:20.214)
by somebody who placates you, says what you need, exchanges time with you, exchanges a card, then takes half an hour of your time. And all they really wanted was like your podcast guest number 17. They're like, I really want to meet him. Can you help me? And you're like, well, one, you should have just asked. And two, I probably would have said no. And so like, this is the world I don't get for people is like, we take all these small steps as if it's going to work the same way. Like when you're...
going to the beach on a colder day than you'd like when it's on your vacation, and you step into the water and your toes are cold, and you think if you go a little further, you won't get colder, but like, you do. It's just if it's cold for your feet, it's colder for your body. So why do we keep walking towards that when we could have figured it out pretty quickly? Like, don't jump in. Don't jump in with that person.
Adam O'Leary (13:12.007)
I love that. And I guess something that I know happens a lot, especially because as you grow up, more things happen, right? You get busier and all this type of stuff. So how do we actually keep the interactions alive? Right? How do we strengthen the bond after the first meeting as opposed to letting it slip away? How often should we be communicating with people? Should we be reaching out to people once a month, once a year, once a century? What does it typically look like for you and what are you sending?
David Homan (13:40.908)
So every birthday, I look at the algorithm on Facebook on LinkedIn. 100 to 130 people wish me happy birthday. Do you know who doesn't? All my close friends who know I hate my birthday. Hated it since I was a kid, not because I hate birthdays, but I use it as like my own New Year's, as like my resolution, like am I where I want to be? And when I'm not,
I hate my birthday, so therefore I hate my birthday every single year because I'm not where I want to be. So the algorithm gives me that falsity. You want to check in on my birthday on February 11th, Adam? I'm going be like, dude, that dude did not hear me. That dude is not somebody I'm going to keep connecting with. So the answer is there's no cadence of it. Because why are you trying to keep a cadence of something that if somebody said to you, hey, like happy March, you'd be like, what? Happy birthday. Like you don't know them.
The way to do it is simply to connect, express gratitude, especially if there's been any sort of interaction, and do the thing that most people somehow fail to think they should do, which is to actually ask how somebody is and actually ask what they need. And then if you can deliver an action from that to help, and this is what I do thousands of times a year for my global network that's called Orchestrated Connecting. It's my music life and my executive life forming
a really weird baby 10 years ago that's just taken on. It's like, you know, from baby steps to like monstrous strides where I'm in the shadow catching up to what I've built. But with that, I'm able to help so many people. I don't have to stay relevant. If you said to me, hey, I'm doing some humanitarian work in Tanzania, I'd be like, oh, cool. I'll ping my friend Asher and his wife. And you'd be like, oh, okay, that's nice. Who's his wife? I'd go, Malala. And like,
They know me because I've helped them because I asked for what they needed and I'm currently trying to help them as best I can.
David Homan (15:45.056)
I don't know when her birthday is. I don't know when his birthday is. I don't know the cadence of how I keep in touch, but I know when something's relevant for them or they have something relevant for me, we've built a bond that transcends the need to maintain something that doesn't have depth.
Adam O'Leary (16:01.493)
Absolutely. And I guess one question that I would have here and this might even be to to drive it all home is that let's say if you actually need something so you now built up all of these relationships I believe you said you have like 1500 or something crazy you built up all these relationships and now you're about to do something whether it be a product launch or something like this What do you do? How do you I don't want to say cash in on the relationships, but how do you go about and
David Homan (16:08.629)
Sure.
Adam O'Leary (16:30.061)
ask those people if they could do you a favor.
David Homan (16:34.773)
Sure. So one, love that you think it's big with 1500, because now I'm at 2300 and I barely sleep. Like my hair's gelbed because otherwise we'd be all crazy in a Jufro from the stress of all this. So a couple of different variations to it, Number one, right, we live in a world where like we have to ask for consent when approaching somebody romantically. Why not ask for consent when you need something from somebody? Adam, I really love being on this podcast.
I'm in the next round of my startup and I'd love to see if I could share it with you. Cause I think some people you might know that you've interviewed might find value. Would you take the time? Right. You can say yes or no, but if you enjoyed our interaction and a more of a friendship than we have from this, you know, deeper dive while being recorded, you might go, you know what? Like, yes, I'll take that time. I think there's value there from what we've, how we've interacted, what's happened since this podcast. And if you say no.
guess what, don't waste my time. And if you say yes, there you go. Now what people will fail to do is they'll say, like, you know, like, if you were doing this to me, like, hey, I had you on my show, I promoted you, I need something in return, I'll go, I don't know how important a favor that was. I'm gonna immediately judge it. But if you say something about the value you had with somebody else, what you enjoyed that sparked that the time was worthwhile,
Most people's responses, of course. So those are two answers. The final one, this is the one, this is like a trade secret, but I put it in the book so like now everyone knows. Call somebody up who's prominent, especially somebody who's helped you or you've helped years ago and thank them for what they've done for you and ask what they need, even though you might need something. You share that with them. Maybe they ask what you're doing, maybe not, but I guarantee you.
eight times out of 10 from having seen this now for practicing this for a decade, somehow serendipity comes up and three weeks later they say, hey, I know you were talking about raising for your startup. I just talked with my friends so-and-so, would you talk with them? I think there might be relevance and then you're going as in my world the other day, my God, I'm talking to a dude who owns a professional sports team on the West Coast, because he needs something my high-end contact thought.
David Homan (19:00.519)
I might be able to deliver value to. It's not manipulation. It's really about this idea of showing generosity, showing gratitude, and then not a surprise. You're top of mind for having a value put in place as opposed to an ask being demanded.
Adam O'Leary (19:18.706)
I love that. And where can people go to learn more about you?
David Homan (19:22.133)
So as my daughter will say, you just have to ask Alexa and Google my name and the word orchestrated. She does this more for my music, because if you take my last name home in and the word music, you can find 200 of my works on my website. You can literally ask Alexa. It will play you my classical music. It is private music. It will help you calm down from anxiety or, most importantly often, fall asleep. But otherwise, my world is all about orchestrating connections. So the book is Orchestrating Connection.
with my co-author Noah Askin, the community is orchestrated connecting. And I put it all out there with videos showing I can actually play piano and then talk and talk about this idea that you can make your life a symphony. You can orchestrate your world. And all of that can be more purposeful and intentional because we want more harmony in our life than we currently have. But we think we can get it in the opposite ways than what, as we've talked about, really
you know, convey it and create more resonance with the people around you.
Adam O'Leary (20:25.281)
Absolutely. David, thank you so much for your time. This was such an amazing episode.
David Homan (20:30.111)
It was such a pleasure, Adam. I really appreciate the time.
Adam O'Leary (20:32.839)
Absolutely, thank you all for listening and I will see you on the next episode. Thank you!
