As many of us have discovered, who you know and how well you maintain those relationships often provides an edge for business success. So important, says master relationship maker Keith Ferrazzi, that networking is nearly a full-time job on its own, and thus inspired his new book, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time.
Building a relationship is far more than sending the annual holiday card, he says. It entails everything from the ability to circumvent executive gatekeepers to mastering the art of the "constant ping": regular notes and other communications to those in your network. One key: The relationships must be genuine to be effective.
Organized around four sections—the Mindset, the Skill Set, Turning Connections into Compatriots, and Trading Up and Giving Back—the book is replete with anecdotes and stories from Ferrazzi's own life and career.
Ferrazzi (HBS MBA '92) is the former CEO of YaYa Media. Coauthor Tahl Raz is the editor of Fortune Small Business.—Mallory Stark