Never Eat Alone

Keith Ferrazzi: I do make a distinction between building relationships and networking – not that the distinction is important – but a lot of people I think inappropriately view networking as insincere or usury and uncomfortable, and it needn't be, but the point that I make is that everything you want to achieve, increasing your career, finding new opportunities, will happen through other people; getting a raise will happen based on the relationships you have with others.

Selling is relationship contingent; the greater the relationship the more permission you have to influence the sale. Being a leader in an organization requires relationships with your people such that they want to follow you, and that empathy is created between the leader and the followers. So relationships are crucial to outcomes, and therefore we need to be much more purposeful, and when we speak of purposeful we don't mean fake, we just mean that it's important you've got to put plans around it, and then we teach people how through frankly the tools of authenticity and generosity which often surprise people.

Rachel Salaman: And how big does a network have to be in order to be effective?

Keith Ferrazzi: It depends on your goals. If you are a stay at home parent and your entire life focuses on your child, you can decide that your network is as large as the universe of individuals that are critical to raise a healthy child – the network of other parents that you know, the network of teachers, coaches, tutors, music instructors; that that network is the limit of what's interesting to you now.

Of course, if you add the other goal of having hobbies of your own, and you might want to expand your network, and then all of a sudden you decide that you want to make sure you're building your relationships before you need them and you may want some day to go back into the workplace, so you've got to add those names to your networking action plan, or what we call our "relationship action plan."

Someday you've had this idea of a business that you might want to start, so it might be a good idea to add a few individuals who could fund that business to your network, or potential partners who could run that business with you. So, if you align your goals and your future goals to the people that you're building relationships with, that's building your network. And in terms of the numbers, it really doesn't matter: it's more about the goals and your capacity and interest in managing the relationships.

Rachel Salaman: Now, what about someone who is already very busy and successful? They might be thinking to themselves that they hire an assistant to protect their time and block access to them. What are the arguments for them to keep building new relationships?

Keith Ferrazzi: I haven't met a single person in my life that doesn't have aspirations. So I've met billionaires who desire to make an impact and create a legacy in this world. And there are new people that they need to know in order to achieve that, so frankly you've got the former president of the United States, Bill Clinton, creating the Clinton Global Initiative, which gives him access to new individuals that serve his purpose in this world of making a broader impact. It would be silly to think that at some level of success you no longer need others.

Rachel Salaman: Now, any introverts out there might be wondering if this is a topic they can relate to. How different is the networking experience for shy people versus for extroverts?

Keith Ferrazzi: Well, the criticality of it is no different. An individual, if shy, has to find an appropriate way that they're comfortable with in navigating relationships to be successful. It may be fewer people at a time, there may be fewer people on their list. They may as a result of having fewer people they need to make sure that they strengthen those relationships even more, because they don't have the abundance of multiple relationships where opportunities can come from, so they've got to make sure that the relationships that they do have are stronger.

But at the end of the day, you have to recognize that an abdication of building relationships because of your natural social style will leave you less successful than others, unless you find an appropriately healthy way to navigate relationships that is authentic to you yet still allows you to do the outreach necessary to achieve your goals.

Rachel Salaman: It sounds like you're saying that shy people should find a way to be less shy.

Keith Ferrazzi: I'm saying that shy people need to find their own way to build relationships, and they might not throw a 25-person dinner party as I would, but they would have a dinner with two or three individuals in a location that's comfortable for them, perhaps not their own home.

So you navigate through the means by which you build the relationships. That said, if you lock yourself in your home, you are probably not going to find the same opportunities as somebody who gets out there and creates relationships and finds opportunity through those new relationships. It depends upon whether or not you choose to push up against your social constraints and boundaries that you have – we all have them – and decide that your goals may be more important than your discomfort.

Rachel Salaman: And throughout the book you include mini biographies from what you call the "connected hall of fame," and these include the former publisher of the Washington Post, Katharine Graham, and Hillary Clinton, to name but two. Now their social status would inevitably win them friends. Isn't it harder to build a relationship network when you're a nobody?

Keith Ferrazzi: I can speak from personal experience, having been a nobody most of my life. I grew up in an immigrant Italian family in Pittsburgh, my father was a steelworker, unemployed a lot of the time, and my mother was a cleaning lady, and so I don't let anybody off the hook just because they don't have the social backing. It's so crucial to recognize that we have to work hard with whatever gifts or acumen you have.

One of the chapters in the book talks about how to become more charismatic just through reading and being more curious about ideas, and therefore more interesting to others. Everybody has to have currency when you come to the table, and some people's currency is their fame or their accomplishments, and others are their personality, and others maybe who they know, but yes, we all have to have some currency and we keep building currency and building currency, but the whole point of this is when you don't have much, if you lead with real generosity, trying to find ways to be of service to people, it compensates for the fact that you may not be walking in the door draped in gold robes.

Rachel Salaman: Now in the book, you warn people against becoming what you call a "networking jerk." How can they avoid that?

Keith Ferrazzi: I give some very tactical examples of things not to do in the book, but I think more importantly you've got to at some point adopt a mindset that says your life will be richer when surrounded by better relationships, and therefore when you're talking to somebody keep in mind of two things.

Find a way to like that person; in other words, be curious about who they really are, ask them sincere questions, and find a way that you might be able to serve them, help them in some way, even if it's in something as simple as a compliment. But find a way to help and find a way to care are two good rules of thumb that guide through any set of relationships. And that's very much the opposite of looking over someone's shoulder to see the next best person to talk to because you've realized or done the calculus in your head that this individual is unimportant to you.

Rachel Salaman: As you mentioned, there are loads of practical tips in your book and you include some for contacting people for the first time: cold calling, as it's known, or cold emailing. What are a couple of those tips?

Keith Ferrazzi: The general philosophy, and I think the chapter is called ‘Warming the Cold Call', it's quite easy these days to find connections to other individuals by looking at things like LinkedIn. Or Relationship Science is a name of another software tool where you can see exactly who you know that knows someone. Therefore asking for an introduction from somebody you already have a personal relationship with is a pretty good way to go about it.

But the other way you can warm the cold call is to do your research on somebody in advance of speaking to them to the point where you know how to be generous just from the subject. If somebody was reaching out to me, they might in the subject say I'd like to support your work with foster children. Well, that means they've read that I'm a big advocate of reformation of foster care in the United States, and that I support orphanages in different parts of the world, and if somebody were to reach out to me suggesting that that's how they wanted to be of service I would take notice and they might get some of my time, whereas somebody else who just wrote can I have a meeting wouldn't.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you imply that emailing is a bit of a cop out sometimes, and that often a phone call would be more effective when you're warm contacting someone. What are your thoughts on using the right medium to connect with people?

Keith Ferrazzi: Sure – when you're reaching out to people, broadly I certainly understand why you would use the medium of phone calling etc, but for gosh sakes if you're looking to get somebody, don't be so lazy that you're not willing to put the work into it. And I see that all the time: people sending crappy form letters and not really doing their homework in advance to understand who they're talking to, or just lazily relying on LinkedIn alone as the medium for communications, assuming that I check my LinkedIn profile like I do my email.

These are various disappointments that I would have for individuals who think that the world is just going to lay down in front of them. You've got to do the hard work, and matching the form of communication that's more intimate or appropriate sometimes is that more hard work that's necessary, and including sending a little package or note, or cutting out an article that you think somebody would like to read and forwarding it to them in that old traditional mail sense.

Rachel Salaman: And how would you know what the right medium was? Is it always obvious whether a phone call or an email would be better, for example?

Keith Ferrazzi: No, I don't think it is obvious, and I think it's through trial, and that's why I deliver so many very specific tactical ideas in the book, because I want people to experience one or two of them based on having read all of them, and think these are something I'd enjoy, and then based on that go ahead and trying them. So no, I don't think it's obvious, but I think you refine your art form through practice.

Rachel Salaman: You say that the "follow-up is the hammer and nails of your networking toolkit." That's a quote from the book, so when should people be following up? When is follow-up appropriate?

Keith Ferrazzi: Follow-up is always appropriate, and it's appropriate immediately. So you finish the meeting, you send a quick email thanking them. In the meeting, as I say you, always lead with some form of generosity. You ascertain what I call five packets of generosity: you think of five things you could do that could be helpful to the person, and sometimes you only come up with three, but push yourself, and then you put them on a list – a good to-do list – and you then follow up and make sure that they get done, and then you put a reminder in your calendar to check back in with that person.

I mean, you've gone to the effort; again this is the hard work thing, to get the meeting, you had an engaging conversation, for God's sake don't stop there: follow up. I'd just add another one on there: how many people have gone to a conference, collected a bunch of business cards and said so I need to get to those? And they sit on your desk wrapped in a rubber band until the next year when you go to that same conference, you haven't touched them.

Rachel Salaman: Conferences are prime networking opportunities as you note in the book. So can you tell us a couple of your tips for making the most of those opportunities?

Keith Ferrazzi: Your listeners can go online, if you put my name Ferrazzi and something we call "conference commando." We've come up with an addendum to the book: one chapter was called "Conference Commando." We add an addendum to that particular chapter of 15 tips for going to a conference that really revolve around planning in advance.

My father used to say the seven Ps: prior proper planning prevents piss-poor performance, and the idea is to make sure that you know who you want to meet, what you want to learn before you show up, and then reach out to people in advance. Speakers who right after they talk are inundated, are often bored and walking around waiting to talk, but if you hadn't reached out to them in advance you wouldn't know what they looked like, you wouldn't know where they are.

I do this all the time when I speak to large audiences. Curiously, I say how many of you would like a half an hour with me after this talk, and 90 per cent of the audience raises their hands, and I say well you can't because I've got to get on a plane and get home or wherever I'm going, but I had three hours where I was walking around the floor of the conference hall waiting for this talk to start. Had any you reached out to me I would have loved to have spent time with you.

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Rachel Salaman: Now a lot of people struggle with small talk. What are the best ways to do it? I know you have a chapter in your book on this, but perhaps you could just give us a brief set of tips?

Keith Ferrazzi: I work hard to go to deep talk, not small talk, so the idea is when you show up truly be curious. Here you are in a meeting, or at a conference, or at a sales call, and everybody is talking about the weather. I live in Los Angeles, the weather is gorgeous always – who cares? So what I want to ask is how was your weekend, or you start revealing yours. I had a wonderful weekend: my boys and I were watching American soccer, rather disappointingly yesterday but we were watching American soccer, and I'd say it was a wonderful national moment and it was just a wonderful family moment at the same time. And that would often lead the next person to be a little revealing themselves: you've got to let a little bit of your guard down to invite in someone else, and that's where you move from the small talk, which is fairly meaningless, to real talk which is when real loyalty and safety and comfort become present.

Rachel Salaman: I notice there was quite a subtle difference between your approach to small talk and the approach of someone like Dale Carnegie, who emphasizes very much the idea of asking questions. You seem to advocate a little bit more yes, asking questions and listening, but also making sure you have something to say yourself. Would you say there was a slight difference in your approach there?

Keith Ferrazzi: I love Dale's book: I learned a great deal from it when I was growing up. I have to say though that sometimes I've seen people use that and it ended up feeling a bit interrogatory, like I'm being talked to by a journalist. I need to feel safe; at the end of the day, relationship management and networking is done well when you create an environment around yourself that invites people in to build a relationship with you. I'll say it one more time, to create an environment around yourself that invites people in to build a relationship with you. So given that is the objective, that requires you creating safety and often that requires you leaving with something that makes another person feel safe about following on. If I just interrogated you about your personal life, I think that would be considered perhaps intimidating or even rude.

Rachel Salaman: That's true – so it's about the balance?

Keith Ferrazzi: Exactly.

Rachel Salaman: Now you consider yourself to be a super-connector. Could you just tell people who don't know what this is and how this fits into the discussion?

Keith Ferrazzi: Not sure that I consider myself that – I've been labeled that by the media, which is how I got asked to write the book in the first place. The bottom line is this: early on I realized I did not have the nepotistic network that many other people had that were growing up in the schools that my parents had got me into – they got me into very proper private schools. I realized that no one else was going to find me a job, no one else was going to get me that great internship etc, so I started to get to know individuals that I respected and admired that I didn't have in my immediate family, and as a result of getting to know them, an entire world was opened to me that previously I thought only was open to those who were born into that social status. So for me, it was borne from necessity, and it's not something that I'm some super-connector, I have learned over the years my life is richer and better if I reach out and build real relationships abundantly.

Rachel Salaman: And do you have an enormous network which takes a lot of maintenance? You say that you're always pinging people to stay in touch, so why do you choose to maintain such a large and presumably growing network? It must still be getting bigger and bigger, isn't it?

Keith Ferrazzi: It is, and because my goals in life continue to grow, I just launched a new mobile technology company that coaches employees in the workplace. I'm so happy that I had raised such a great network over the years, I literally closed my funding round in two days for my first seed round, and now as I'm closing my series A. Interestingly enough, the person who is likely to take the lead of that series A is a friend from business school.

As I work on my charity and my philanthropy again consistently, I find that the networks that I've developed is the real foundation of my ability to help the kids that I like to help in our charities. As I launch a new book, my friends who are other authors are individuals who promote my new book to their networks, and as a result I get my impact on this world through my book in many more hands. Why would I stop? If I for some reason felt that my goals were sloping off and I didn't care any more about the things that I cared about before, perhaps, but I still do.

Rachel Salaman: Some people might be wanting to emulate you and grow a large network, but they might be worried that they would annoy people if they were keeping in touch with them with emails and phone calls as you have to do when you're building a network. How do you know you're not annoying people with your keeping in touch contact?

Keith Ferrazzi: It's an interesting question. I guess I would just ask, are you trying to be in touch with people in the service of them or in service of you? I keep Google alerts around individuals and as a result, when something happens in their life I know that it's happened – somebody got a promotion; somebody had an article printed about them etc – and I reach out to them congratulating them or noting what I've read. I think that's a lovely way to stay in touch: I don't think anybody would think it terrible. On the other hand what I don't do, I don't send long email newsletters to people who have not asked for them, so I think if it's in service of them then I think that's a different situation.

Rachel Salaman: We said at the beginning that you've updated "Never Eat Alone" partly to take into the account of online networks and social media. So tell us about what you call "the fringe."

Keith Ferrazzi: So the true benefit of social media is it gives you reach hereto before unapproachable. You can follow individuals and learn from them that you may never meet; you can admire individuals from afar and read their tweets, retweet them and actually get to the stage, particularly if they're engaging in their own social media, of creating an online dialog that's memorable because it's contextualized what's going on in their life on any given day. That is the fringe, and being able to manage the fringe is a very powerful tool, because it's from the flange that opportunity is born.

There is a lot of research done both on deep ties and loose ties, and loose ties is where opportunity comes from. If you keep your network very tight and very close, you don't necessarily find new opportunity, you find traditional opportunity to that respected network, but with a set of loose ties you can actually expand your opportunities quite nicely, and with social media being global today your reach is truly unlimited.

Rachel Salaman: And how should online and offline networks interact, do you think, in an ideal world?

Keith Ferrazzi: I think of them as a bit of a funnel, so I might start following somebody online, and then as I build the relationship, as I create a deeper connection or as I and they decide that the relationship is worthy of deeper investment, it can then go to a personal interaction of some sort, and that's basically how I think about it. And the flipside is there are people who are very deeply connected to me in the physical world, but I follow them online and I connect with them online because it might be that I don't really need to see them for a quarter or two if we're not geographically proximate, so I stay nicely connected to them but peripherally through Facebook posts and that sort of thing. So I see them at the juncture intertwined but I also see one as a conduit to the other.

Rachel Salaman: So what would be your top bits of advice, Keith, for anyone who wanted to grow their network and become more successful starting today?

Keith Ferrazzi: I think the most important thing – and presumably you have goals for yourself, professionally and otherwise – probably the most important thing is to begin to match those goals with a set of individuals. We call this a "people plan" or a "relationship action plan." That would work for everybody listening to this, to literally say who are three individuals that if I built better relationships with I'd have greater success? Who are 25 individuals? And actually write them down.

If relationships are important to your success then they should be important enough to write down. Prioritize those names, and begin a research on each of them, particularly the A-level priorities, and ask yourself a really simple question: how do I serve them? Start following them online, start connecting with them peripherally and moving those relationships closer and closer to a more deeper, rich, real relationship, and keep remembering the simple two rules: find a way to help, and find a way to care. But do it purposefully, and I think if you put a relationship action plan and you come back six months later you'll realize the fruits of that work.

Rachel Salaman: Keith Ferrazzi, thanks very much for joining us today.

Keith Ferrazzi: My pleasure.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Keith's book again is "Never Eat Alone and Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time." You can find out more about Keith and his work at www.keithferrazzi.com.

I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.