Never Eat Alone

by Keith Ferrazzi

  How can you reach out? Join your local Chamber of Commerce. Local executives, businesspeople, and entrepreneurs generally populate the Chamber. In every community, there are plenty of young politicos looking to climb the political ladder. Early on, before their rise to prominence, you can engender a lot of loyalty and trust by supporting their goals and chipping in when they decide to run for office.

  7. Journalists

  Journalists are powerful (the right exposure can make a company or turn a nobody into a somebody), needy (they're always looking for a story), and relatively unknown (few have achieved enough celebrity to make them inaccessible).

  For years, since I was back at Deloitte, I've called on journalists at different magazines, taking them to dinners and pumping them full of good story ideas. I now know people in top positions at almost every major business magazine in the country. Which is one of the reasons why in less than a year after I took over YaYa, with barely a shred of revenue to its name, the company—and, more important, the idea YaYa was trying to sell—appeared in publications like Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, CNBC, Brand Week, Newsweek, the New York Times... the list goes on.

  These are seven different professions tailor-made for superconnectors. Reach out to some. And there are others—lawyers, brokers, etc. Become a part of their network and have them become a part of yours. Cut the umbilical cord to the folks around the office water cooler. Mix it up. Hunt out people who look and act and sound nothing like you do. Seek out ideas from people you don't ordinarily talk to who inhabit professional worlds you don't ordinarily travel in.

  In one word: Connect. In four better words: Connect with the connectors.

  CONNECTORS' HALL OF FAME PROFILE

  Paul Revere (1734-1818)

  Understanding Paul Revere's legacy to the wo r ld of networking is as simple as grasping the following: Some people are much more well connected than others.

  If you moved to a small town and wished, for some reason, to meet everyone in town, what would you do? Go door-to-door, greeting one resident at a time? Or would you try to find one plugged-in resident who could open all the doors for you?

  The answer is clear.

  Today, that plugged-in townie might be, say, the high school principal, the Little League commissioner, or the church pastor. But in Paul Revere's day—think of the 1770s in the Boston metro area—the most plugged-in people were like Revere, the owner of a silversmith shop in the city's North End, businessmen and merchants who dealt with individuals at every level of Boston society and culture.

  Revere was also an extremely social individual: He formed several clubs of his own and joined many others. As a teenager, he and six friends formed a society of church bell ringers; as an adult, he joined the North Caucus Club, a society founded by Samuel Adams's father to choose candidates for local government. In

  1 7 7 4 , when British troops began to seize munitions, Revere formed yet another club, of sorts, responsible for monitoring the movements of British troops. In addition, Revere belonged to the Masonic Lodge of St. Andrew, through which he was friendly with revolutionary activists such as James Otis and Dr. Joseph W a r r e n .

  All of which helps to explain w h y Revere, among all Bostonians in the year preceding the Revolution, served as courier for the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, riding express to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It was also he w h o spread the w o r d of the Boston Tea Party to N e w York and Philadelphia. Revere, in short, was a man w h o knew not only people—he knew gossip, he knew rumors, he knew news, and he knew it from every level of Boston society.

  In April 1 7 7 5 , Revere caught w i n d of British orders to capture rebel leaders and forcibly disarm the colonists. So Revere and his fellow rebels devised a warning system: Two lanterns shining from the steeple of Boston's O l d North Church (the city's tallest building) indicated that the British troops were advancing on Boston by sea; one candle indicated a land advance. Either way, the rebels in Boston and its surrounding suburbs would know when and where to flee and take up arms.

  We all know the "one if by land, two if by sea" part of this story. What's less known is that Revere's networking savvy is what allowed him—and maybe only him—to be the one entrusted with illuminating the church steeple.

  The church, as it happened, was Anglican; the rector strongly supported the Crown. But Revere knew the vestryman, John Pulling, through the North Caucus Club. And through his shop, he knew the sexton, Robert N e w m a n , who had a key to the building.

  Revere's connections were crucial to him that fateful night. After lighting the lanterns, Revere needed to reach Lexington, to warn rebel leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock. First, two acquaintances rowed Revere across the Charles River, to Charlestown; there, a horse was waiting for Revere, lent to him by another pal, Deacon John Larkin.

  Chased by Redcoats, Revere was diverted north of Lexington, to the town of M e d f o r d . Because he knew the head of Medford's military, Revere rode to his house and warned him. W i t h the militiaman's help, Revere alerted the town of Medford before heading to Lexington.

  Most of us know the Lexington part of the story. Less known is that on the same night that Revere made his midnight ride, a man named William Dawes went galloping off in the other direction to muster the militias to the west of Boston. Revere's ride stirred up an army, while something like three people showed up from the towns Dawes visited. Why? Revere was a connector: He knew everybody, and so was able to storm into one village after another, banging on all the right doors and calling out all the right people by name.

  Historians say Revere was blessed with an "uncanny genius for being at the center of events." But it doesn't take genius for that— just involvement and active interest in your community and a friendship (or two) with a connector.

  16. Expanding Your Circle

  The most efficient way to enlarge and tap the full potential of your circle of friends is, quite simply, to connect your circle with someone else's. I don't think of a network of people as a "net," into which you wrangle contacts like a school of struggling cod. Again, it's like the Internet, an interconnecting series of links in which each link works collaboratively to strengthen and expand the overall community.

  Such collaboration means seeing each person in your network as a partner. Like a business in which cofounders take responsibility for different parts of the company, networking partners help each other, and by extension their respective networks, by taking responsibility for that part of the web that is theirs and providing access to it as needed. In other words, they exchange networks. The boundaries of any network are fluid and constantly open.

  Let me give you an example of what I mean from my own life. One Saturday afternoon, I went to join my friend Tad and his wife Caroline at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Tad introduced me to Lisa, the manager of the hotel, who cuts a striking pose: tall, blond, articulate, charming, funny, and casual all at the same time.

  "If between the two of you there's someone in L.A. you don't know, I'll be very surprised," Tad told us. In his eyes, we were both master networkers. Lisa was, as many in the hospitality business are, a super-connector.

  Within ten minutes of meeting each other, we knew we were going to be great friends. Lisa and I spoke the same language.

  Lisa had heard about the dinner parties I regularly threw for business. Your guests should be staying at the Bel-Air during their L.A. jaunts, she told me. I, in turn, looked around the Bel-Air and thought how memorable it would be to hold some of my events in such swanky surroundings. Could Lisa and I form a social partnership?

  So I made a simple suggestion.

  "Lisa, let's share a few months of dinner parties. You hold a dinner party at the Bel-Air and give me half the invite list. Then I'll hold one of my dinner parties and give you half of the list. We'll split the tab for each event, saving each of us a bundle of money, and together we'll meet a lot of new, exciting people. By cohosting
the events, we'll make them that much more successful."

  Lisa agreed, and our dinner parties were a huge success. The unique mix of people from the worlds of business and entertainment was fun and interesting. Not only did we introduce our friends to an entirely new group of people, but the dynamic at the parties was exhilarating.

  Politicians, the inveterate masters of networking, have exchanged their networks in this fashion for years. They have what are called "host committees," groups of people hailing from different social worlds who are loyal to a specific politician and charged with introducing their candidate to their respective circle of friends. A typical well-established politician will have a host committee of doctors, lawyers, insurance professionals, college kids, and so on. Each committee is made up of well-connected people in their respective worlds who organize parties and events granting the politician access to all their friends. To my mind, it offers a great template for people looking to expand their own network.

  Are there worlds you want more access to? If so, see if you can find a central figure within that world to act as your own one-person host committee. In a business context, say you plan on selling a new product that your company is introducing several months down the line, and most of your customers will be lawyers. Go to your personal lawyer, tell him about the product, and ask him or her if they'd be willing to come to a dinner with a few of their lawyer friends that you'd like to host. Tell them that not only will they get an early look at this fabulous new product, but they'll have an opportunity to meet your friends, who could become potential clients. They'll become responsible for holding events that will usher you into their group of friends. You'll become responsible for doing the same for them. This is exactly what I am doing at FerrazziGreenlight Training & Development as we roll out our training course "Relationships for Revenue Growth" into the legal profession. This training and development has been successfully taught at consulting firms, financial services companies, and to software sales forces and many others. But who better to capitalize from relationship selling but lawyers?

  This kind of partnering works wonderfully. But the underlying dynamic at work has to be mutual benefit. It should be a win-win for all involved.

  If you are sharing someone else's circle of friends, be sure that you adequately acknowledge the person who ushered you into this new world, and do so in all the subsequent connections that they helped foster.

  Never forget the person who brought you to the dance. I once mistakenly invited a brand-new friend to a party without inviting the person who introduced us. It was a terrible mistake, and an unfortunate lapse in judgment on my part. Trust is integral to an exchange of networks that demands treating the other person's contacts with the utmost respect.

  As your community grows, partnering becomes more of a necessity. It becomes a matter of efficiency. One contact holds the key to maintaining all the other relationships in his or her network. He or she is the gatekeeper to a whole new world. You can meet dozens, even hundreds of other people through your relationship with one other key connector.

  Two quick rules of thumb:

  1. You and the person you are sharing contacts with must be equal partners that give as much as they get.

  2. You must be able to trust your partners because, after all, you're vouching for them and their behavior with your network is a reflection on you.

  A word of caution—never give any one person complete access to your entire list of contacts. This is not a free-for-all. You should be aware of who in your network is interested in being contacted and how. Exchanging contacts should take place around specific events, functions, or causes. Consider carefully how your partner wants to use your network and how you expect to use his. In this way, you'll be more helpful to the other person, which is the kind of genuine reciprocity that makes partnering, and the world, work.

  17. The Art of Small Talk

  We all have what it takes to charm everyone around us— colleagues, strangers, friends, the boss. But having it and knowing how to work it is the difference between going through life in the shadows and commanding center stage wherever you happen to be.

  So you weren't born with that essential ingredient of charm, the gift of gab. So what? Few are.

  We've all struggled with that ancient fear of walking into a room full of complete strangers and having nothing to say. Instead of looking out at a sea of potential new friends and associates, we see terrifying obstacles to the wet bar. It happens at business meetings, conferences, PTA meetings, and in just about every forum where being social matters. That's why small talk is so important. That's also why, for those of us without a knack for small talk, situations such as these that can help us meet so many others are also the situations that make us feel the most naked and uneasy.

  And in this area, technology hasn't helped one bit. Wallflowers see e-mail and instant messaging as a nifty escape hatch from having to interact with others. The truth is, however, that these new modes of communication aren't particularly good for creating new relationships. The digital medium is all about speed and brevity. It may make communication efficient, but it's not effective when it comes to making friends.

  Yet some are able to negotiate social situations with relative ease. How do they do it?

  The answer, most people assume, is that the ability to make successful small talk is somehow innate, is something you're born with. While comforting, this assumption is entirely untrue. Conversation is an acquired skill. If you have the determination and the proper information, just like any other skill, it can be learned.

  The problem is that so much of the information out there is flat-out wrong. I know too many CEOs who take pride in their terse, bottom-line behavior. They proudly assert their disinterest in "playing the game"; they revel in their inability to be anything but gruff.

  But the fact is that small talk—the kind that happens between two people who don't know each other—is the most important talk we do. Language is the most direct and effective method for communicating our objectives. When playwrights and screenwriters develop characters for their work, the first thing they establish is motivation. What does the character want? What is he or she after? What are his or her desires? The answers dictate what that character will and won't say in dialogue. That exercise is not particular to the dramatic world; it's a reflection of how we humans are hardwired. We use words not only to articulate and make concrete our own deepest desires, but also to enlist others in quenching those desires.

  About ten years ago, Thomas Harrell, a professor of applied psychology at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, set out to identify the traits of its most successful alumni. Studying a group of MBAs a decade after their graduation, he found that grade-point average had no bearing on success. The one trait that was common among the class's most accomplished graduates was "verbal fluency." Those that had built businesses and climbed the corporate ladder with amazing speed were those who could confidently make conversation with anyone in any situation. Investors, customers, and bosses posed no more of a threat than colleagues, secretaries, and friends. In front of an audience, at a dinner, or in a cab, these people knew how to talk.

  As Harrell's study confirmed, the more successfully you use language, the faster you can get ahead in life.

  So what should your objective be in making small talk? Good question. The goal is simple: Start a conversation, keep it going, create a bond, and leave with the other person thinking, "I dig that person," or whatever other generational variation of that phrase you want to use.

  A lot has been said about how one should go about doing that. But in my opinion, the experts have gotten wrong the one thing that works the best. The first thing small-talk experts tend to do is place rules around what can and can't be said. They claim that when you first meet a person, you should avoid unpleasant, overly personal, and highly controversial issues.

  Wrong! Don't listen to these people! Nothing has contributed more to the development of boring ch
itchatters everywhere. The notion that everyone can be everything to everybody at all times is completely off the mark. Personally, I'd rather be interested in what someone was saying, even if I disagreed, than be catatonic any day.

  When it comes to making an impression, differentiation is the name of the game. Confound expectation. Shake it up. How? There's one guaranteed way to stand out in the professional world: Be yourself. I believe that vulnerability—yes, vulnerability—is one of the most underappreciated assets in business today.

  Too many people confuse secrecy with importance. Business schools teach us to keep everything close to our vest. But the world has changed. Power, today, comes from sharing information, not withholding it. More than ever, the lines demarcating the personal and the professional have blurred. We're an open-source society, and that calls for open-source behavior. And as a rule, not many secrets are worth the energy required to keep them secret.

  Being up front with people confers respect; it pays them the compliment of candor. The issues we all care most about are the issues we all want to talk about most. Of course, this isn't a call to be confrontational or disrespectful. It's a call to be honest, open, and vulnerable enough to genuinely allow other people into your life so that they can be vulnerable in return.

  How many negotiations would have ended better if both parties involved were simply honest and forthright about their needs? Even when there is disagreement, I've found people will respect you more for putting your cards on the table.

  Whether at the negotiating table or at the dinner table, our penchant for inhibition creates a psychological barrier that separates us from those we'd like to know better. When we leave a formal, hesitant, and uncomfortable conversation where we've held back our true selves, we console ourselves by dismissing the encounter, or more often the person, by thinking, "We had nothing in common anyway."