The 10 Secrets of a Master Networker
Published January 2003
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PRINTER FRIENDLY
COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE"So how'd I do?" I ask him when we're back at the Yale Club, his base when he's in New York, after our Rainbow Room lunch.
"Awful," he reports. And it's true. The entire experience had the feel of a first date. When I did manage to speak, I actually stuttered. My questions weren't particularly passionate or insightful. And when at the very last moment I went in for the metaphorical kiss, I instead got a chummy punch on the shoulder. Ferrazzi stepped in -- because I'd forgotten my business cards -- to say he'd get us in touch. I now ask him to grade my performance. He gives me a preposterously charitable C-minus. "You can do better," he says. "You just have to work on it."
Rule 1: Don't network just to network.
"Well, what do you want?" Ferrazzi will ask any would-be networker seeking instruction in the art. What do you want?
"If your aspirations lie with the crème de la crème," he says, "that is, if your aspirations are to be one of the top x people in the world in whatever you do, if you're so bold as to want to be president of the United States or a respected CEO in the Fortune 500, I would argue that you won't get there by knowing a lot of middle-level people." You need to know the right people, for the right reason.
As a Yale undergrad, Ferrazzi, who grew up outside Pittsburgh, thought he wanted to become the governor of Pennsylvania. So he became the president of Yale's political union. When he was looking to join a fraternity, he researched which one had the most active politicians as alumni. (Sigma Chi wasn't chartered at Yale, so he founded a chapter.) When he was a sophomore, he ran for New Haven City Council, but lost. From 1991 through 1999 at Deloitte Consulting, his first job after Harvard Business School, he desperately wanted to distinguish himself from the other striving postgrad consultants. Since Michael Hammer of "reengineering" fame was the guru of the moment, Ferrazzi befriended him and helped Deloitte ride Hammer's fame. Ferrazzi became the youngest person ever elected partner at Deloitte Consulting. The more focused Ferrazzi's goal was, the more outrageous his networking fortunes became.
In November 2000 the YaYa board named Ferrazzi CEO and handed him two goals: establish a viable business model, and then either find a major investor or sell the company to a well-heeled strategic acquirer. At the time, YaYa had the tech capability to invent on-line games that corporations could use to attract and educate their customers, but the company had no customers -- or revenue. "I was hired to get a new concept heard for the first time in the marketplace," Ferrazzi says. He mapped out the most important players in the on-line-games industry, from CEOs and journalists to programmers and academics. He knew almost all of them within a year. And in 2002, YaYa recorded $8 million in sales.
Rule 2: Take names.
"I'm constantly ripping out lists in magazines. I was one of Crain's '40 under 40' when I was 30. Interestingly enough, I had been ripping out 40-under-40 lists for years and continue to do so. Those are individuals who somebody has spent enough time to identify as an up-and-comer, a mover, an intellectual, and these are the kinds of people I want to surround myself with. I rip out lists of top CEOs, most admired CEOs, regional lists. A recent book by Richard Saul Wurman lists the 1,000 most creative people in the United States. It's fantastic."
Either Ferrazzi or his assistant enters the gathered names into a database. He has call sheets by region, listing the people he knows and those he'd like to know, and when he's in town, he phones all of them. The numbers are also put into his two PalmPilots, one that has names strictly relating to the particular business he's involved in at the moment (YaYa now) and another that contains his own personal contacts. There are more than 5,000 contacts in all, some of them people Ferrazzi doesn't know yet. Those are what he calls "aspirational contacts."
He pulls out his Palm and shows me the contact information for Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin empire. "I don't know him. But I want to," he says. Then he scrolls down and comes to Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony Corp. of America. "He was on my aspirational list once. I now know Howard," he notes.
Rule 3: Build it before you need it.
Back in 1999, when Ferrazzi arrived at Starwood Hotels from Deloitte, his goal was to become president or even CEO of the multinational hospitality corporation. But by early 2000 things weren't going well. The company, under the mercurial leadership of chairman and CEO Barry Sternlicht, was known for the early defections of its top executives. Ferrazzi's relationship with Sternlicht was "strained," according to one insider, and Ferrazzi realized he had no future at Starwood.
