Since its publication in 2005, Never Eat Alone has sold 400,000 copies and has dominated the business category in the area of networking and reaching out to others. In its expanded new edition, author Keith Ferrazzi has updated the book with new profiles of the Connector's Hall of Fame, and with extensive chapters on how to use social media, to connect with people in business and beyond.

The bestselling business classic on the power of relationships, updated with in-depth advice for making connections in the digital world. 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 in early 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 contacts list, people he has helped and who have helped him. And in the time since Never Eat Alone was published in 2005, the rise of social media and new, collaborative management styles have only made Ferrazzi’s advice more essential for anyone hoping to get ahead in business. 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 Yale, a Harvard M.B.A., 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-handing 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 social event--“invisibility” is a fate worse than failure. Become the “King of Content”: How to use social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to make meaningful connections, spark engagement, and curate a network of people who can help you with your interests and goals. In the course of this book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Winston Churchill 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, this new edition of Never Eat Alone will remain a classic alongside alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People for years to come....

Praise for Never Eat Alone:

"Your network is your net worth.  This book shows you how to add to your personal bottom line with better networking and bigger relationships.  What a solid but easy read!  Keith's personality shines through like the great (and hip) teacher you never got in college or business school. Buy this book for yourself, and tomorrow go out and buy one for your kid brother!"
—Tim Sanders, author of Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends and leadership coach at Yahoo!
 
"Everyone in business knows relationships and having a network of contacts is important. Finally we have a real-world guide to how to create your own high-powered network tailored to your career goals and personal style."
—Jon Miller, CEO, AOL
 
“I’ve seen Keith Ferrazzi in action and he is a master at building relationships and networking to further the interests of an enterprise.  He’s sharing his playbook for those who want learn the secrets of this important executive art.”
—Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO-designate, Siemens AG
 
“A business book that reads like a story—filled with personal triumphs and examples that leave no doubt to the reader that success in anything is built on meaningful relationships.”
—James H. Quigley, CEO, Deloitte & Touche USA LLP
 
"Keith has long been a leading marketing innovator. His way with people truly makes him a star. In Never Eat Alone, he has taken his gift and created specific steps that are easily followed, to achieve great success."
—Robert Kotick, Chairman and CEO, Activision
 
“Keith’s insights on how to turn a conference, a meeting, or a casual contact into an extraordinary opportunity for mutual success make invaluable reading for people in all stages of their professional and personal lives.  I strongly recommend it."
—Jeffrey E. Garten, Dean, Yale School of Management

Autorentext

Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Becoming a Member of the Club

Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.

—Margaret Wheatley

How on earth did I get in here?” I kept asking myself in those early days as an overwhelmed first-year student at Harvard Business School.

There wasn’t a single accounting or finance class in my background. Looking around me, I saw ruthlessly focused young men and women who had undergraduate degrees in business. They’d gone on to crunch numbers or analyze spreadsheets in the finest firms on Wall Street. Most were from wealthy families and had pedigrees and legacies and Roman numerals in their names. Sure, I was intimidated.

How was a guy like me from a working-class family, with a liberal arts degree and a couple years at a traditional manufacturing company, going to compete with purebreds from McKinsey and Goldman Sachs who, from my perspective, seemed as if they’d been computing business data in their cribs?

It was a defining moment in my career, and in my life.

I was a country boy from southwestern Pennsylvania, raised in a small, hardworking steel and coal town outside of Latrobe called Youngstown. Our region was so rural you couldn’t see another house from the porch of our modest home. My father worked in the local steel mill; on weekends he’d do construction. My mother cleaned the homes of the doctors and lawyers in a nearby town. My brother escaped small-town life by way of the army; my sister got married in high school and moved out when I was a toddler.

At HBS, all the insecurities of my youth came rushing back. You see, although we didn’t have much money, my dad and mom were set on giving me the kind of opportunities my brother and sister (from my mom’s previous marriage) never got. My parents pushed me and sacrificed everything to get me the kind of education that only the well-to-do kids in our town could afford. The memories rushed back to those days when my mother would pick me up in our beat-up blue Nova at the bus stop of the private elementary school I attended, while the other children ducked into limos and BMWs. I was teased mercilessly about our car and my polyester clothes and fake …