Book review: Never Eat Alone

Never Eat Alone is not a new book, in fact, it was written before Keith Ferrazzi's new book, Who's Got Your Back, that I reviewed a a few weeks ago. There are a number of references to NEA in WGYB and I had been meaning to read it for a long time, but noting that there were somewhat tactical references to it in the more recent book, I bumped it to the top of my reading list.

Unlike many other business authors that can seem to abandon ideas in their previous books, I actually think that you can get more value in reading NEA after reading WGYB. Although my review of WGYB states that there is a good amount of tactical tips that are actionable, NEA is, in my opinion, a tactical companion to WGYB -- WGYB adjusts your mindset in a certain way and NEA gives a lot more actionable steps about how to reach the goals of your WGYB mindset.

Among the strategies in NEA are specific actionable toolkits such as getting past assistants that view their job as protecting their boss from speaking to you and making cold calls. There are lists of steps to ensure that networking interactions are worthwhile and that your expectations are correctly set, for example with cold calls:

1. Conveying credibility
2. Stating your value proposition
3. Imparting convenience and urgency
4. Being prepared in advance to offer compromise

As with WGYB, there are a lot of reviews that bash on Ferrazzi for name-dropping and for fake modesty. In my opinion (still) the name-dropping adds legitimacy to a lot of the real-world examples of putting the tactics to work and I think that Ferrazzi has a good personal story that shows how he made his way out of growing up in a blue collar town.

Worthwhile read.

Kindle version available.

Link -- book
Link -- Kindle version