Basics of networking and how to become successful through building your life, business and network over time. There are many other good books on this topic, but this is an excellent summary of them (includes many principles and excerpts from other books).

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Product Description

Do you want to get ahead in life?

Climb the ladder to personal success?

The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.

In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him.

The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the Davos World Economic Forum.

Ferrazzi's form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handling usually associated with “networking.” He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles. Among them:

Don’t keep score: It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

“Ping” constantly: The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time—not just when you need something.

Never eat alone: The dynamics of status are the same whether you’re working at a corporation or attending a society event— “invisibility” is a fate worse than failure.

In the course of the book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Katherine Graham to Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan to the Dalai Lama.

Chock full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,” and more, Never Eat Alone is destined to take its place alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People as an inspirational classic.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1198 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-22
• Released on: 2005-02-22
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The youngest partner in Deloitte Consulting's history and founder of the consulting company Ferrazzi Greenlight, the author quickly aims in this useful volume to distinguish his networking techniques from generic handshakes and business cards tossed like confetti. At conferences, Ferrazzi practices what he calls the "deep bump" - a "fast and meaningful" slice of intimacy that reveals his uniqueness to interlocutors and quickly forges the kind of emotional connection through which trust, and lots of business, can soon follow. That bump distinguishes this book from so many others that stress networking; writing with Fortune Small Business editor Raz, Ferrazzi creates a real relationship with readers. Ferrazzi may overstate his case somewhat when he says, "People who instinctively establish a strong network of relationships have always created great businesses," but his clear and well-articulated steps for getting access, getting close and staying close make for a substantial leg up. Each of 31 short chapters highlights a specific technique or concept, from "Warming the Cold Call" and "Managing the Gatekeeper" to following up, making small talk, "pinging" (or sending "quick, casual" greetings) and defining oneself to the point where one's missives become "the e-mail you always read because of who it's from." In addition to variations on the theme of hard work, Ferrazzi offers counterintuitive perspectives that ring true: "vulnerability... is one of the most underappreciated assets in business today"; "too many people confuse secrecy with importance." No one will confuse this book with its competitors.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Though this audio has action plans and motivational urgency, it's mainly about the quieter tasks of developing faith, persistence, loyalty, and trust in one's fellow man. The autobiographical story is about a rural Pennsylvania man who, after attending Yale and Harvard Business School, started his own consulting company. He achieved success by paying attention to people and situations that interested him and by methodically cultivating relationships in those realms. The lesson is surprisingly calming and inspirational. In this respect the gentle-voiced Richard Harries connects deeply with the material. The advice is less about conquering the world than about committing oneself to an authentic and well-organized career path. T.W. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Ferrazzi grew up in rural Pennsylvania, the son of a steelworker and a cleaning lady, yet his ability to connect with others led to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and a prestigious partnership at Deloitte Consulting. His skills at creating and maintaining a network of contacts are nothing short of those of a serious presidential contender. All business hopefuls seek to enter a sphere of players more powerful than themselves, and Ferrazzi says that sometimes all it takes is asking. The book is dense with suggestions. Seek out mentors to guide you and introduce you to the people you need to know and then become a mentor yourself. Use your initial conversation to show the other person what you have to offer them, and never keep score. Make others feel important by remembering their names and birthdays. And don't be afraid to open up and show vulnerability--it's a great icebreaker. Ferrazzi presents a whirlwind of ideas to widen your circle of contacts that goes way beyond the usual stale concepts of "networking." David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Customer Reviews

Average
Nutshell review - An average book about building business relationships. Nothing particularly new or unique that cannot be found in any number of other common sense business books. If you haven't read any others than this is an ok place to start.

Tips for Expanding Your Network
Ferrazzi has some good ideas in this book regarding networking, meeting people and using relationships as a way to achieve success and contentment in this life. While a few examples from the lives of great networkers appear throughout the book, he mainly focuses on himself - which is both good and bad. The good is that he has tried many methods of trying to meet people and staying in touch with them once you do. The result is insightful advice and suggestions. The bad is that you get a sense that this guy likes to talk about himself and his accomplishments, which gets annoying over the course of the book. Not all of his ideas are practical for most people either, like hosting dinner parties once a month and having them catered. But all in all, this is a worthwhile book and goes further in creativity than most networking books. Like the author, I too believe that much of life comes down to who you know and the give and take in relationships and was glad to gleam some wisdom from someone who has literally tried it all within the world of real networking.

Liberal Trojan Horse
Such an odd book. Useless as a guide for networking and growing a business, and is nothing more than liberal propoganda disguised as a how-to book.

First of all, the author has helped Hillary Clinton campaign. Hillary Clinton abhors private business, wants to tax us to death, and if she had her way no private businesses would even exist at all! Does the author agree with this mindset, and if so, are we to take any of his "advice" seriously?

Second, the author continues to talk about how great it is to be "progressive", and how you must seek out "progressive" people to do business with. Huh? Progressives are nothing more than fringe lunatics. If you want to see a "progressive" in action, go to Daily Kos and read some of the disgusting blog postings there. Communist, anti-American tripe.

Lastly, the author is friends with Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post...a cheap anti-American site that does nothing but support terrorists, whine about capitalism, and trash white males in racist fashion.

You are known by the company you keep, and the author is cleary not someone to take advice from. And aside from all the political faults he has, tbe book pretty much is useless anyways. There is no solid strategy to networking here....just a hodgepodge autobiography of some random left wing "radical" who has somehow managed to make some money in the same capitalist system that all of his buddies hate so much.

I would suggest "Endless Referrals" By Bob Burg instead.