Never Eat Alone
I just recently finished a phenomenal book titled ‘Never Eat Alone’ that was on Networking, not the computer type, rather the social type. It was written by Keith Ferrazzi who holds the title as the youngest CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) for a Fortune 500 company when he worked for Starwood (aka Westin and those truly Heavenly Beds) The book has hit ‘Manual Status’ for me and is right next to ‘The E-Myth’ and ‘Think and Grow Rich’ due to it’s massive amounts of actionable material that one can refer to and attempt to perfect for the rest of their career.
I finished it a few days before going to a Dan Kennedy seminar in Atlanta on marketing and Ferrazzi recommends becoming a Conference Commando when attending seminars and not just going to learn, but to make great connections with others that are there. I didn’t have time to implement many of the strategies, but did make a hit list of who I wanted to get to know that I thought would be there. With my focus on networking I walked into the room the first day where there were about 550 people and I ended up sitting next to a Billionaire from Australia named Anne McKevitt!! Nobody knew who she was and I ended up taking her to lunch (and I picked up the tab, too!) and picking her brain for a full hour, one on one. She had made it in the UK as their Martha Stewart equivalent and sold her product lines company in ‘05 for $970M. We chatted throughout the conference for the following couple days and I gleaned a wealth of knowledge from her. Another person I connected with was Mark Victor Hansen’s publicist who is a brilliant woman who can get to anyone in the media. We had lunch and dinner together and she is a huge fan of our new venture we’re launching (website coming soon) and wants to help publicize it when the time is right.
Needless to say, his advice paid off in spades and that was just one of a thousand ideas and practices that he has perfected in his career. The thing I appreciated most about his view on networking is that it’s all about relationships and building friendships through the process. I agree that the personal life/business life separation is a joke and we all do business with people we like and trust.
To top off the great seminar, I emailed Keith while waiting to catch my plane home (most CEO’s and small business owners email is simply their name@theircompanydomain.com) to let him know of my success and thoughts on the book. I used one of his strategies and said I’d like to interview him for a newsletter we’re doing for a mastermind group I’m in that is focused on marketing for small businesses. He recommends interviewing people you want to meet that you think are ‘out of your league’ because everyone loves to be interviewed. He emailed back in less than 5 minutes that Saturday afternoon and set me up with his editor to interview for the piece. It wasn’t him, but I got a ton of info from the editor and am building ties with their organization through the process. It worked like a charm.
The book is great for anyone (wanting a better job, a big sale, to get into that group you want to be part of, to find a mentor, etc) and I recommend it wholeheartedly.