Networking
If someone had the ability to take away all of my sales skills, and told me that I could pick just
one sales skill to keep, I would chose the ability to network. Throw away your closing
techniques, throw away your power point presentations, throw away your 50 page sales
proposals, throw away your subscription for hot sales leads and throw away all of your
expensive clothes. The most profitable skill for your sales career is your ability to network
effectively. And by networking, I don't mean carrying around a handful of business cards to
hand out to everyone that you meet. Networking is the process of forming deep and long-lasting
bonds with people that can hopefully assist you in reaching your goals. Keep in mind that you
have no way of knowing where your next big sales lead or referral is coming from, so basically
EVERYONE is and can be a great connection in your network. And remember, the best way to
get what you want, is to help other people get what they want.
Two of my favorite books are Love is a Killer App -How to Win Business and Influence Friends
by Tim Sanders and Never Eat Alone-And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at A
Time by Keith Ferrazzi. I urge everyone that is reading this web site to drop everything that you
are doing and go straight to your favorite book store and buy both of these books and read
them as fast as you can. Love is the Killer App virtually changed my life. It's a short, simple to
read book and probably not very expensive in paperback. A casual acquaintance gave me this
book and I am forever in their debt. One of the many skills that I learned from this book is how
to read a book. I wrote about it in my blog on Dec. 29th, 2006 (see
http://hectorcadena.com/blog/?s=clif&submit=). There's a term that Tim calls Cliffing and
Tagging that launched me on my way to devouring books. And that was just a by-product of
the other networking skills that Tim teaches in his book.
The most important lesson that I learned about networking is that you should seek first to help
others before you seek others to help you. It's such a contrary lesson that goes against our
human nature but my personal experiences hves proven this out to be the golden rule of
networking. If you go out of your way to help others without any expectations or strings
attached, somehow, someway it comes back to you. This is a life changing lesson. Reach out
to others and look for deep, long term relationships. I promise you that your life will be forever
changed.
I recently read another great networking book that I want to add to my list of recommended
networking books. It's entitled One Phone Call Away by Jeff Meshel. It's a great book that sor
to builds nicely on the first two books that I've already recommended. Depending on your level
of expertise on networking, I want to recommend the order in which to read these books.
If you are a novice networker, in other words, you have little or no experience, I recommend that
you start with Tim Sanders book first. The reason is because first, it is an easy read, and
second, because his book goes into the "karmic" reasons that you should be doing things for
others.
If you already understand the law of reciprocity, then you might want to skip the first book and
go straight to Keith Ferrazzi's book. Keith's book has more practical ideas for novel networking
concepts and is less "touchy feely" than Tim's book. It's also a little bit longer and harder to
read. Don't get me wrong, it's a number one bestseller, but if you don't understand the reasons
behind networking, you might not buy into it as easily.
Jeff's book is definitely the most straight-forward of the three, and consequently, I only
recommend it for advanced networkers. It deals with C-level executives and more formal
networking structures, such as the Metropolitan Club, ect. It's short, but packed with great
networking ideas.
Like anything, networking is a skill that you can always improve upon and never completely
master. But if you get just one good idea from any of these books, your time, money and effort
should be well worth it.
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