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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2193 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

Customer Reviews

Skip this one
I heard this guy at a conference, and of course our conference hosts presented us with the book as a gift in our rooms the night before. I walked out on the "speech," and thought maybe the book would be better. Alas, it wasn't. This is the most self-aggrandizing book of this genre I have ever read. One wonders how many times that "I" appears in the book. "I did this, I did that, I'm great...." You name it. His methods smack of insincerity and merely using people for his own advantage. It disgusts me. Much better material out there; don't waste your money on this one. Unless you like to use people.

I LOVE that book!
This is an amazing book that has done many things for me with the two most important: given me lots of ideas about marketing my business and validating personal ideas and business practices that I had.

I also very much enjoyed reading this book: it's full of examples of people that I have hear of and can identify with, it's well written with few "repeats" and best of all, it almost reads like a novel: you want to keep on reading!

I originally got this book from the library: I am buying it for my own collection as I'll want to refer to it over and over again.

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.