Trabajo con Proposito: Keith Ferrazzi

How to Increase Turnout at Your Events
Posted on October 14th, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

For important FG events, we send out a teaser five days ahead to decrease attrition - last-minute cancellations or no shows of our Anchors. (Anchors are those high-cache or just high-interest individuals that get everyone else on the guest list excited.)

In the teaser, we list the Anchors, ask if there'’s anyone the invitee would specifically like to meet, and then WE act as their ambassadors to make that connection happen.

This method is VERY successful, but only appropriate for larger, big-name events.
0 comments // In Follow Up
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How to Turn a Screw Up Into a Stronger Relationship
Posted on October 12th, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

Maybe you missed a scheduled call, didn'’t show up to an event you said you would, or double-booked meetings. In short, you didn't do what you said you were going to do. How do you not only save the situation, but end the exchange with a stronger relationship?

An apology letter or phone call is first.

Here are a few tips to get it right:

* Be the Early Bird: Make the outreach as soon as possible. Don'’t wait!
* Focus on the Fix-it: Take responsibility for your mistake, but shift quickly to the positive by clearly stating what you have already done or will do to rectify the situation.
* •Wrap It: An unexpected gift (theater tickets, dinner on you in a great restaurant) is a simple way to show that the bad behavior, whatever it was, really isn'’t your style. Just remember, gifts are never a replacement for getting it right!

Once you've apologized, it's time to deliver, deliver, deliver. Make sure you follow through with whatever you've promised, and take extra care to get things right during your next interactions with the person. Your goal is to rebuild trust, and the only way to do that is with a clean track record going forward.

Screw ups do happen to everyone - albeit hopefully not too often! But what'’s most important is how you handle the aftermath.

Anyone have a story about a screw-up that ultimately made their relationship stronger?
1 comment // In Conflict Resolution
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What Makes a Great Partnership?
Posted on September 30th, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

Michael Eisner's terrific new book, Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed, is out, and I had the great pleasure of interviewing him on the topic at the Drucker Forum in LA last week. As soon as the video is online, I'll link it here.

Working Together is a compilation of stories of what Eisner calls "magical partnerships." Aside from being enjoyable and inspirational reads, they shine a light on some of the traits of business' great collaborators: Shared passion. Patience. Trust. Lack of ego. Love. (Yes, love!)

Only one critique here about language: "Magical partnerships" makes it sound like Harry Potter has to send one to you by owl or you're out of luck. No way! Helping people learn what they can do to make these incredible working relationships happen is the heart of what I do.

But that doesn't make Eisner's book any less significant, or enjoyable. Working Together is a fine tribute to my favorite expression: "Business is human. Relationships power growth."

When Eisner came on at Disney, Stanley Gold and Frank Wells originally suggested that Eisner and Wells would share the CEO title. When Eisner said no, Wells stepped aside and offered to act as his COO.

Here was Eisner's reaction:

What kind of person would spend his life so successfully climbing his way up the corporate ladder and then, at the very top, step aside for someone else - and someone else, for that matter, he didn't know very well?...an executive who could cede power just like that, and be as comfortable as a number two as he was as a number one. Could that really be true?

I was about to find out....We were headed into the toughest challenge of our professional lives, together. For the next ten years, that journey would be as exciting, enjoyable, rewarding, and triumphant as either of us could have dared to hope. From our first day in the office that fall, my partnership with Frank Wells taught me what it was like to work with somebody who not only protected the organization but protected me, advised me, supported me, and did it all completely selflessly. I'd like to think I did the same for Frank, as well as the company. We grew together, learned together, and discovered together how to turn what was in retrospect a small business into indeed a very big business.

For more on Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed, check out www.michaeleisner.com.
2 comments // In Team Building
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Don’t Want Heart Disease? Improve Your Relationships.
Posted on September 28th, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

We are in charge of developing our own networks - and doing so is the difference between success and failure; happiness and angst. A study by Gallup provides amazing, jaw-dropping proof. What they're calling you're "social wellbeing," I'd just go ahead and call it youranetwork. They're one and the same.

As you'll see in the article, your relationships affect everything from surgery recovery time (you heal more slowly if you're fighting with your spouse!) to simply whether you have a good or bad day.

Here are some intriguing highlights:

1. Relationships matter. Relationships protect us during hard times, which improves our cardiovascular functioning and decreases stress levels. People that have very few social ties have nearly twice the risk of dying from heart disease and are twice as likely to catch colds (even though they are exposed to fewer germs due to being less social).

2. Support matters. Being in a tumultuous relationship can extend the time it takes for you to recover from surgery or a major injury.

3. Proximity matters. A friend who lives three blocks from you has dramatically more of an affect on your well-being than one who lives just three miles away.

4. Mutual friends matter. Your whole social network affects your entire well-being, which means that mutual friendships matter a lot. If you invest in these relationships you'll see a high return. Improving their well-being will improve your well-being. As I wrote in WGYB, lifelines have a DISPROPORTIONATE effect on your quality of life.

5. Time matters. If we achieve at least 6 hours of social time a day it increases well-being and decreases stress and worry. That 6 hours is definitely attainable because it includes time at work, talking on the phone, emailing, talking to friends in person, and social media. Even having 3 hours of social time decreases the chance of having a bad day by 10 percent.

6. Work friends matter. Thiry percent of people have a best friend at work. Those that do are seven times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and produce higher quality work. Those that don’t have a best friend at work have a one in 12 chance of being engaged – yikes.

Can you think of a time your network affected your health?
3 comments // In Relationship Trends and Research
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4 Tips from the RMA Idol To Stay on Top of Your Networking Game
Posted on September 23rd, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

To close out the RMA's second Pilot class, we had an "RMA Idol" contest. We asked participants to enter with their success stories. Meet the winner: Scott Zimmerman, president of Televox, who truly became a master networker over the course of 10 weeks. Scott shared his four top tips on how to stay successful with the RMA community - and now I'm passing them on to you.

1. Practice act of proactive generosity or social arbitrage at least once a week.

2. Challenge myself to reach out to one new aspirational contact a week.

3. Use at least one day a week to contact a minimum of 50 contacts.

4. Revisit one RMA lesson each week and examine ways to extend my application of the principles.

Thanks, Scott!

What tips can you add to Scott's list?
0 comments // In Relationship Development Skills
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Secrets of a Master Networker, 2.0
Posted on September 21st, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

Remember Rule 2 from the article that prompted NEA, Secrets of a Master Networker? "Take names."

The article talked about how I have call sheets by region, listing the people I know and those I'd like to know, so that when I'm in town, I can get in touch with them.

Yes, relationship management is important. Yes, we've evolved and refined that process. But that rule should really be "Develop Friends" not "Take Names."

Note: I said relationship management not contact management.

Business today is personal. The best business relationships have always been personal, but today we've taken it to a whole new level.

The edges between work and social life are blurring. People are shifting their social networks into their work networks and vice versa - business associates and childhood friends, side by side.

Business has invaded Facebook. Talent seekers are scouring MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube for their next star. Sales people are doing the same to get their friends to help them sell.

Have you Friended your boss on Facebook, or connected on LinkedIn? Do you send Twitter messages to your customers? You do now. Or should.

Social software permits rich interactions. What you feed into the system becomes another point we can use to connect.

We prefer to buy from people who are like us. You like Law and Order? Me too! That may not always be enough to move a sale, or get a job, but it shows your human dimensions, and in this wired world of digital communities and deep long-tail niches, that's how it's done.

When you enter a market, be a real person. Act like one, care like one, and feel like one. Those subtle signals, verbal and non-verbal, help people figure out how to react to you - and whether they should bother handing you any of their attention.

Tell me when being yourself turned your business contact into a friend.
2 comments // In Relationship Development Skills
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Four Reasons You NEED Relationships to Thrive, Today and Every Day
Posted on September 16th, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

1. You need to make a choice -- wake up and stop being a sheep. Choose to care about your business, the work you do, the people you do it with. No, I mean really care.

2. You need to stand for something, to do your work with a purpose larger than yourself - as a cause - that makes you happier, more passionate, and what you do more meaningful. . . Because happy, passionate, meaningful people - and companies - create extraordinary, profitable products.

3. You need to triumph over your lizard brain -- the part that wants you to conform and avoid standing apart from the crowd, that keeps you from sharing and connecting with others, not doing or learning new things, but playing it safe. The stronger support you have in place, the easier is it to fight Godzilla off.

4. How large your network is or how many relationships you have with important people doesn't matter -- a real relationship master knows how to leverage the network they have today to make ideas happen and get things done. Working with others to produce value rules the day’s agenda.