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

by Keith Ferrazzi

1. Fifteen minutes and a cup of coffee. It’s quick, it’s out of the office, and it’s a great way to meet someone new. This proved one of my most popular recommendations from the first edition of this book. I know, because I started getting dozens of requests a week for these meetings. So remember my earlier advice: Make sure you lay out very clearly why those fifteen minutes will be valuable to them. 2. Conferences. If I’m attending a conference in, say, Seattle, I’ll pull out a list of people in the area I know or would like to know better and see if they might like to drop in for a particularly interesting keynote speech or dinner. 3. Invite someone to share a workout or a hobby (golf, chess, stamp collecting, a book club, etc.). 4. A quick early breakfast, lunch, drinks after work, or dinner together. There’s nothing like food to break the ice. 5. Invite someone to a special event. For me, a special event such as an evening at the theater, a book-signing party, or a concert is made even more special if I bring along a few people who I think might particularly enjoy the occasion. 6. Entertaining at home. I view dinner parties at home as sacred. I like to make these events as intimate as possible. To ensure they stay that way, I generally will invite only one or two people I don’t know that well. By dinner’s end, I want those people leaving my home feeling as if they’ve made a whole new set of friends, and that’s hard to do if it’s a dinner filled with strangers. 7. Volun...