Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Chapter 7 provides readers with advice and actionable tasks to prepare for building relationships at work, conferences, social events, and one-on-one meetings. The “homework” in question means collecting information about potential people in your network. The authors provide a checklist of resources that readers can use to help them to learn about potential additions to their network. These include: Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, literature of public relations departments and firms, and annual reports. The authors provide suggestions on how to leverage conference attendance and “chance encounters” in one’s favor. However, they stress that it is not enough just to know information about someone’s career and company. Rather, readers should learn about a person’s passions, needs, and interests so that they can go beyond just meeting and actually connect—even bond—with new acquaintances. The authors end this chapter by advising readers that “your goal in such a setting is to transform what could be a forgettable encounter into a blossoming friendship” (75).

Chapter 8 continues the argument from the previous chapter with more actionable advice about researching potential contacts. Using the Relationship Action Plan, readers can track the people they know and the people they want to know with detailed strategies directed towards the predetermined objectives of the individual’s