Never Eat Alone

by Keith Ferrazzi

  I have a friend who is the executive vice president of a large bank in Charlotte. His networking hotspot is, of all places, the YMCA. He tells me that at 5 and 6 in the morning, the place is buzzing with exercise fanatics like himself getting in a workout before they go to the office. He scouts the place for entrepreneurs, current customers, and prospects. Then, as he's huffing and puffing on the StairMaster, he answers their questions about investments and loans.

  Besides food and exercise, I sometimes take people to church.

  That's right, church. I attend a mostly African-American and Hispanic Catholic Church in Los Angeles—St. Agatha's. It's wonderfully "unorthodox." Instead of "passing the peace" in the form of a simple handshake, a gospel choir belts out uplifting tunes while the congregants walk around the church hugging each other for ten minutes. It's an amazing scene. I don't try to foist my beliefs on anyone; the people I bring along—whether an actor or lawyer or an atheist or Orthodox Jew—tend to see my invitation as a kind of personalized gift. It shows them that I think so highly of them that I'm willing to share such a deeply personal part of my life.

  Contrary to popular business wisdom, I don't believe there has to be a rigid line between our private and public lives. Old-school business views the expression of emotions and compassion as vulnerability; today's new businesspeople see such attributes as the glue that binds us. When our relationships are stronger, our businesses and careers are more successful.

  Take Bonnie Degrius, a consultant who used to work at the Gartner Group. Bonnie sends her list of contacts and associates an annual newsletter that is, well, all about her. She writes of the new and exciting things she's working on, or about her family. She wrote about how the death of her father changed her life. You might think those who received this letter were uncomfortable with such a public display of emotion. Just the opposite. More and more people—men, women, colleagues, and strangers alike— asked to receive Bonnie's letter. They'd write her back and tell her of similar experiences they'd been through. After a few years, Bonnie had a network that stretched across the nation. She's poured her heart and passion onto the page and, because of it, she's received the trust and admiration of hundreds in return.

  Make a list of the things you're most passionate about. Use your passions as a guide to which activities and events you should be seeking out. Use them to engage new and old contacts. If you love baseball, for example, take potential and current clients to a ballgame. It doesn't matter what you do, only that it's something you love doing.

  Your passions and the events you build around them will create deeper levels of intimacy. Pay attention to matching the event to the particular relationship you're trying to build. I've got an informal list of activities I use to keep in touch with my business and personal friends. Here are some things I like to do:

  1. Fifteen minutes and a cup of coffee. It's quick, it's out of the office, and it's a great way to meet someone new.

  2. Conferences. If I'm attending a conference in, say, Seattle, I'll pull out a list of people in the area I know or would like to know better and see if they might like to drop in for a particularly interesting keynote speech or dinner.

  3. Invite someone to share a workout or a hobby (golf, chess, stamp collecting, a book club, etc.).

  4. A quick early breakfast, lunch, drinks after work, or dinner together. There's nothing like food to break the ice.

  5. Invite someone to a special event. For me, a special event such as the theater, a book-signing party, or a concert is made even more special if I bring along a few people who I think might particularly enjoy the occasion.

  6. Entertaining at home. I view dinner parties at home as sacred.

  I like to make these events as intimate as possible. To ensure they stay that way, I generally will invite only one or two people I don't know that well. By dinner's end, I want those people leaving my home feeling as if they've made a whole new set of friends, and that's hard to do if it's a dinner filled with strangers.

  Of course, we all need to schedule the appropriate time with friends and family as well, or just to read or relax. While enriching your life to include others whenever and wherever you can, make sure you're not neglecting the key relationships in your life.

  When your day is fueled by passion, filled with interesting people to share it with, reaching out will seem less like a challenge or a chore and more like an effortless consequence of the way you work.

  13. Follow Up or Fail

  How often do you find yourself standing face-to-face with someone you've met before, but you can't recall their name?

  We live in a fast-paced digital world that bombards us with information. Our inboxes are a constant procession of new and old names demanding our attention. Our brains are in constant overdrive trying to keep track of all the bits and bytes and names that cross our desk each and every day. It's natural that to stay sane, we must forget or ignore most of the data clamoring for a sliver of real estate in our already overcrowded noggins.

  In such a world, it's incomprehensible that only a small percentage of us decide to follow up once we've met someone new. I can't say this strongly enough: When you meet someone with whom you want to establish a relationship, take the extra little step to ensure you won't be lost in their mental attic.

  Just recently, I was down in Florida giving a speech at an awards ceremony for past and present members of my college fraternity, Sigma Chi. I probably gave my card and e-mail address out to at least a hundred people that night. After the black-tie affair had ended, I retreated to my hotel in the wee hours of the morning and checked my e-mail. There, in my inbox, was a simple gracious note from a young fraternity brother expressing his thanks for the speech, what it meant to him as someone who came from a similar background, and his hopes that someday he and I might sit down for a cup of coffee. Within the next two weeks, well over a hundred people e-mailed or called to express similar sentiments. The follow-up I remember best is the one I got first.

  The most memorable gifts I have ever received are those whose value could not be measured in terms of dollars and cents. They are the heartfelt letters, e-mails, and cards I receive from people thanking me for guidance and advice.

  Do you want to stand out from the crowd? Then you'll be miles ahead by following up better and smarter than the hordes scrambling for the person's attention. The fact is, most people don't follow up very well, if at all. Good follow-up alone elevates you above 95 percent of your peers. The follow-up is the hammer and nails of your networking tool kit.

  In fact, FOLLOW-UP IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN ANY FIELD.

  Making sure a new acquaintance retains your name (and the favorable impression you've created) is a process you should set in motion right after you've met someone.

  Give yourself between twelve and twenty-four hours after you meet someone to follow up. If you meet somebody on a plane, send them an e-mail later that day. If you meet somebody over cocktails, again, send them an e-mail the next morning. For random encounters and chance meetings, e-mail is a fine tool for dropping a quick note to say, "It was a pleasure meeting you. We must keep in touch." In such an e-mail, I like to cite something particular we talked about in the course of our conversation— whether a shared hobby or business interest—that serves as a mental reminder of who I am. When I leave the meeting, I put the name and e-mail address of the new acquaintance in my database and program my PDA or BlackBerry to remind me in a month's time to drop the person another e-mail, just to keep in touch.

  Why go to all the trouble of meeting new people if you're not going to work on making them a part of your life?

  In the aftermath of a business meeting, I've taken to doing something my classmate at HBS and former COO James Clark swears by. In his follow-up, he always reiterates the commitments everyone has made, and asks when a second follow-up meeting can be arranged.

  When the other person has agreed to do something, whether it's meeting for coffee next time you're in town or signing a ma
jor deal, try to get it in writing. It's shouldn't be formulaic or ironclad, just something such as "It was great talking to you over lunch yesterday. I wanted to follow up with some thoughts we discussed yesterday. I believe FerrazziGreenlight can serve the interests of your company, and I've had time to work out the finer details. The next time I'm in town, I'd love to get on your calendar and chat for five or ten minutes."

  Nine times out of ten, the person will casually write back accepting your offer to meet again. Then, when the time comes to take that person up on his offer to talk again, you can call him with the force of his e-mail commitment "in writing" behind you. He's already agreed to meet. Now the question is when, and your persistence will assure that happens at some point.

  But remember—and this is critical—don't remind them of what they can do for you, but focus on what you might be able to do for them. It's about giving them a reason to want to follow up.

  Another effective way to follow up is to clip relevant articles and send them to the people in your network who might be interested. When people do this for me, I'm tremendously appreciative; it shows they're thinking about me and the issues I'm facing.

  While e-mail is one perfectly acceptable way to follow up, there are other methods to consider. A handwritten thank-you note these days can particularly capture a person's attention. When's the last time you received a handwritten letter? When you get something addressed to you personally, you open it.

  The thank-you note is an opportunity to reinforce a perception of continuity in a relationship and create an aura of goodwill. Mention any pertinent information you failed to bring up in your meeting. Emphasize both your desire to meet again and your offer to help.

  Here are a few more reminders of what to include in your follow-ups:

  • Always express your gratitude.

  • Be sure to include an item of interest from your meeting or conversation—a joke or a shared moment of humor.

  • Reaffirm whatever commitments you both made—going both ways.

  • Be brief and to the point.

  • Always address the thank-you note to the person by name.

  • Use e-mail and snail mail. The combination adds a personalized touch.

  • Timeliness is key. Send them as soon as possible after the meeting or interview.

  • Many people wait until the holidays to say thank you or reach out. Why wait? Your follow-ups will be timelier, more appropriate, and certainly better remembered.

  • Don't forget to follow up with those who have acted as the gobetween for you and someone else. Let the original referrer know how the conversation went, and express your appreciation for their help.

  Make follow-up a habit. Make it automatic. When you do, the days of struggling to remember people's names—and of other people struggling to remember yours—will be a thing of the past.

  14. Be a Conference Commando

  Military strategists know that most battles are won before the first shot is fired by the side that determines where, when, and how an engagement is fought. And so it is with most successful conferences. Turning a conference into your own turf and setting goals ahead of time is what turns a casual conference attendance into a mission.

  Don't just be an attendee; be a conference commando! Conferences are good for mainly one thing. No, it's not the coffee and cookies at breaks. It's not even pricey business enlightenment. They provide a forum to meet the kind of like-minded people who can help you fulfill your mission and goals. Before deciding to attend a conference, I sometimes informally go so far as using a simple return-on-investment-type thought process. Is the likely return I'll get from the relationships I establish and build equal to or greater than the price of the conference and the time I spend there? If so, I attend. If not, I don't. It's that simple. That may seem like an awfully pragmatic view of conferences, but it works.

  Right after we sold YaYa, the new owners instituted a set of cost-cutting policies relative to travel and conferences. I thought the policies were fundamentally off the mark.

  The owners saw conferences as boondoggles—pleasant affairs for indulgent executives rather than as revenue generators. To our new parent company, the costs of sending people to a few events each year seemed like an unnecessary expense on a start-up company's balance sheet.

  I strongly disagreed and promised to convince them otherwise. I set about recording the actual number of revenue-generating projects that came directly from people I had met at conferences. The owners were stunned when I presented a spreadsheet showing successive deals and how a significant chunk of revenue could be traced back to one conference or another.

  Their ill-tempered disposition toward these business gettogethers—and these executives are far from alone in holding such attitudes—stems from an all-too-common misperception that conferences are places to find insight. Wrong. Real, actionable insight mostly comes from experience, books, and other people. Roundtable discussions and keynote speeches can be fun, even inspirational, but rarely is there the time to impart true knowledge.

  But there may be no better place to extend your professional network and, on occasion, get deals done. Let me give you an example based on sales. In the old model of selling, 80 percent of a salesperson's time went into setting up meetings, giving a presentation, and trying to close a deal. The other 20 percent was spent developing a relationship with the customer. Today, we focus mostly on relationship selling. Smart salespeople—in fact, smart employees and business owners of all stripes—spend 80 percent of their time building strong relationships with the people they do business with. The slickest PowerPoint presentation can't compete with the development of real affection and trust in capturing the hearts and minds of other people.

  Those who use conferences properly have a huge leg up at your average industry gathering. While others quietly sit taking notes, content to sip their free bottled water, these men and women are setting up one-on-one meetings, organizing dinners, and, in general, making each conference an opportunity to meet people who could change their lives.

  If these people seem as if they aren't playing by the same rules as their fellow attendees, you're right. They've gone well beyond the traditional, warmed-over advice to Wear Your Badge, Warmly Greet Everyone, Establish Firm Eye Contact, and other common refrains that fail to distinguish them from the rest of the horde.

  Yes, there's a guide to getting the most out of a conference. My friend Paul Reddy, a software executive, claims people are either bowling balls or pins at a conference. If you're the ball, you walk (or roll) into a conference, event, or an organization, and you blow it apart. With a dash of bravado and ingenuity, you leave a positive impression in your wake, create friendships, and achieve the goals on your agenda. The pins sit placidly by, waiting for something, anything, to happen to them.

  Don't think of your next conference as a business-related retreat. Think of it as a well-coordinated campaign to further your mission. Here are the rules I follow at each and every event I attend:

  Help the Organizer (Better Yet, Be the Organizer)

  Conferences are logistical nightmares. There are a thousand different things that go into pulling off a successful business gathering. The mess that can ensue is an opportunity for you to come in and help out—and become an insider in the process.

  Once you're on the inside, you can find out who will be attending and what the hot events will be. And you'll find yourself at all those unlisted dinners and cocktail parties that are thrown for the conference poobahs.

  How do you find yourself part of the process? It's not really all that hard. First, review the event's materials, visit its Web site, and find out who the main contact is for putting together the conference. Put in a phone call. The person responsible for these kinds of events is generally overworked and stressed out. I like to call these people a few months ahead of the event and say, "I'm really looking forward to the conference you're putting together. I'm interested in helping make this year be the best year ev
er, and I'm willing to devote a chunk of my resources—be it time, creativity, or connections—to make this year's event a smash hit. How can I help?"

  I guarantee the coordinator will be shocked with delight. I say that because I was once responsible for those stressed-out planners back in my early days as CMO of Deloitte.

  Deloitte Consulting was working with Michael Hammer to grow a credible reengineering practice. We thought a conference might be a great way to introduce our relationship with Michael to the market, strengthen our brand, and win a few customers to boot. So we proposed a joint conference hosted by Deloitte and Michael Hammer. We would bring the industry expertise and case studies, and Michael would bring his expertise in reengineering and his understanding of how to run a world-class conference.

  It gave me a chance to see the inner workings of how a successful conference is orchestrated and of course build a great relationship with Mike. I became acutely aware of how powerful it was to know, in advance, who would be attending; why some speakers were chosen and some were not; and what the best forums were for networking.

  From the outset, our idea was to apply some method to the usual conference madness. A tracking system was put in place that recorded daily our progress against the objectives we set for ourselves. Each Deloitte partner's objective was to meet two people who were assigned to them from the guests we knew would be attending. Each was given one person as a primary target—someone we really wanted to win as a client. The other person was someone we thought Deloitte would benefit from knowing, perhaps a member of the media. The basic goal remained, quite simply, to meet new people.

  Because we knew who was attending beforehand, the partners got a one-page bio on the people assigned them, listing who they were, what they did, their accomplishments and hobbies, and the potential challenges their company faced that Deloitte might be able to address. This was enough information to make a real connection when the partner finally met the individual.