Book Review: Never Eat Alone

Time to start something new here on the DB, and we’ll call them Book Reviews (for lack of a more imaginative term). First up is Never Eat Alone.

I started reading Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi on a flight to a photo conference earlier this year. Wow – what a book. I saw its potential so quickly that I started over after reading just a few chapters, taking notes on all the important points.

As the title suggests, the book is about building your business through relationships. We’ve all heard that relationships are the key to success (now more than ever). But in this book, Keith really digs into the particulars of why this works, how to do it, the people you will run into, and more. It’s written in a way that’s applicable to both the entrepreneur and the company employee – the techniques work for both.

The overall theme is that success only comes about by making other people more successful. So, your focus must be others. You have to be generous, and not ‘keep score’. You also need to find out who the ‘connectors’ are. These are the people that have an extensive network, and they are everywhere. Don’t just look for them in your work, but all around you – restaurant owners, journalists, etc. Focus on helping them, and eventually become part of their network.

Another critical aspect to success, according to Keith, is to find mentors and mentees. Cultivate knowledge transfer to and from you.

This is a great book which I know I’ll be referring to again and again! Have you read it? What were your impressions?

Tagged as: books, business