"The E-mail is simple: 'Dear Michael, I'm a friend of Jane's, and she suggested I talk with you. Fifteen minutes and a cup of coffee is fine. Jane thinks we should know each other.' I get a cordial 'Of course we can' response.
"So now I go back to the secretary with the 'Of course we can.' Now it's not if, but when, we'll meet. Now it's 'Michael would like to set up this meeting, just let me know when.' And finally it happens."
Rule 7: Always ask.
This is the story Keith Ferrazzi tells about his father:
Pete Ferrazzi, a steelworker whose world was hard hours and low wages, knew he wanted more for his son. He knew his boy's life would be better if he could find a way out of their working-class Pittsburgh suburb.
"Keep your social calendar full," says Ferrazzi. "I give myself one night a week for myself, and the rest is an event or dinner."
But the elder Ferrazzi didn't know the exits. He'd never been to college. He knew nothing of country clubs or private schools. He could picture only one man who might have the sort of pull that could help: his boss. Actually, the boss of his boss's boss -- Alex McKenna, CEO of Kennametal, in whose factory Pete Ferrazzi worked. The two men had never met. But the elder Ferrazzi had an idea about how the world worked. He'd observed that audacity was often the only thing that separated two equally talented men and their job titles. Pete Ferrazzi asked to speak with McKenna, who, upon hearing the request, was so intrigued that he took the meeting. In it, he agreed to meet Pete's son, Keith, but not to do anything more.
However, it turned out that McKenna liked the precocious adolescent -- especially because of the way young Keith had come to his attention. McKenna was on the board of a local prep school where he sent his own children, by reputation one of the best schools in the country. Strings were indeed pulled, and Keith entered a new world, on scholarship, that set him on an entirely new course, just as his father had hoped. "I got one of the best educations America has to offer," Ferrazzi says today. "Starting with elementary school, prep school, on to Yale and Harvard -- it would never have happened if my father hadn't believed that it never hurts to ask. The worst anyone can say is no. Not many people believe that. Embarrassment and fear are debilitating."
Totally fearless is how Joshua Ramo, an editor at Time Inc., describes Ferrazzi. Ramo remembers a moment at the Davos economic forum, where the two first met, when Ferrazzi walked onto a hotel bus, saw Nike founder Phil Knight, and made a beeline for the seat next to his.
Boldness, and its particular genius, was the father's gift to his son.
Rule 8: Don't keep score.
Successful networking is never about simply getting what you want. It's about getting what you want and making sure that people who are important to you get what they want, too. Often, that means fixing up people with one another. Take, for instance, this unsolicited E-mail message that Ferrazzi sent to two key executives in digital gaming:
Steve and John,
I wanted to introduce the two of you. John, I've bragged about Steve to you already. And Steve, John is the president and COO of EA [Entertainment Arts], the largest games company in the world. John has been an outspoken believer that the future of games will converge with ITV and that EA is the kind of company that will be at the forefront given the leadership of someone like John, the size of EA, and power of their content. I know, Steve, that you get the power of games as the one who allowed G4 to come to life. It would seem that the two of you would benefit from some conversations about your mutual visions. Not to mention that I suspect that you'll really like each other as well.
Best,
Keith Ferrazzi
"It's about a personal connection that makes you feel a sense of reciprocity," Ferrazzi says. "Superficiality is not networking. There are people who have lots of superficial connections, and people call that networking. But that's not successful. You feel dirty when you talk to someone like that. The outcome of good networking is the capacity to have a conversation with anyone you want to have a conversation with and then to leave that conversation with a lasting connection of some sort."
The best sort of networking occurs when Ferrazzi can connect two people who don't know each other. Which drives home a surprising implication: the strength of your network derives as much from the diversity of your relationships as it does from their quality or quantity. Most of us know the people within our own profession and social group, and little more. Ferrazzi makes a point of knowing as many people from as many different worlds as possible. The ability to bridge those worlds is a key attribute in managers who are paid better and promoted faster, according to an influential study conducted by Ron Burt, a professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
