Life Musings

Keith Ferrazzi offers the following bit of advice for those who want to network more effectively: Be interesting. As he says,

To show that he was smart yet unconventional, Ferrazzi used to wear a bow tie to conferences. To emphasize his charitable nature, he is always passionately involved in one philanthropic cause or another. He is keenly aware that perception drives reality and that we are all, in some sense, brands. All his choices -- his Prada suits, his conversational style, his hobbies -- help him fashion a distinctive identity that is both interesting and attractive. And the cornerstone that supports the design of a person, he instructs, is content. "Being known is one thing, but being known for content is something else entirely -- and much better," he says. "You have to have something to say to be interesting to people."=

In college, that something was politics. At his first job, at Imperial Chemical Industries, he mastered the ins and outs of total quality management. (He persuaded the industrial giant to craft a new position for him called head of TQM in North America.) Later, when he worked at Deloitte, reengineering was his hook. Today it's on-line games and "how the new medium will impact society and corporations."

What sets Ferrazzi apart from everybody else is the relentlessness he brings to learning and packaging and selling these hooks. YaYa's board knew that that characteristic would prove vital for a company whose market and product were totally untested. The on-line-games industry has always been driven by hits, by competing in a race for the latest, greatest diversion. But Ferrazzi began to trumpet the industry as the next powerful communications medium, an untapped $20-billion marketing vehicle perfect for product placements, branded gaming events, custom games-related training for businesses, and on and on. It wasn't long before he was not only attending games conferences but speaking at them, "which is always preferable," he says.

Once the pitch is perfected, getting attention is never a problem. Journalists are powerful (the right exposure can make a company), needy (they're always looking for a story), and relatively unknown (few have achieved enough celebrity to make them inaccessible). It's a combination that Ferrazzi has learned to exploit. He knows people in top positions at almost every major business magazine in the country. Which is why it's little surprise that in less than a year after Ferrazzi took over YaYa, with barely a shred of revenue to its name, the company -- and, more important, the content -- appeared in places like Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Brand Week, and the New York Times.

This excerpt was from his article, "The 10 Secrets of Master Networkers."