2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Networking Reference Book, 7 Aug 2010
This review is from: Personal Networking: How to Make Your Connections Count (Paperback)
I like the FT business books - I used one of these books (on Business Plans) as a "bible" throughout my business life. Mick Cope had quite an act to follow with his book - "Personal Networking".
The book is both a "quick read" and a "handbook".
QUICK READ - Taken at speed you can get lots of interesting snippets and quotes that are extremely useful. My favourite quote from the first chapter is:-
"By professional networking I mean a set of close contacts or associates who will help deliver my value to market. The key thing is that these are people who will ~help you in the market, THEY ARE NOT THE MARKET. Sorry for the full-on letters, but my definition of a network is ~people who will help amplify my personal capital in the market(tm), not a bunch of friends and colleagues to whom I try to sell under the guise of giving them a great opportunity. Active management of these people is not networking; it is client relationship management, a whole different ball game and one deliberately not covered in this book."
I really like this comment - and Mick's general ethos on networking. I particularly agree with the emphasis on the difference between CRM and Personal Networking. My personal interest in the area of Personal Networks started with investigating CRM. I see that CRM is much more about "keeping the score" and sharing contacts - your personal network is a very different thing.
HANDBOOK - The book is extremely thorough and introduces processes you can follow to analyse your network and evaluate your connections in a visual way. There are good illustrations throughout - and Mick produces detailed tables to support the writing. This coupled with the detailed coverage of every element of networking makes this a great bookshelf reference.
It might be easy to assume this book is out of date - first published in 2003 - but I think that networking is just networking (on-line or real world) ... and this book keeps you focussed on the basic principles. Don't expect any tips on LinkedIn or Twitter strategies though!
It's not quite the "bible" my FT Business Book was - but it's definitely on the reference shelf for networkers."
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Badly written, disappointing, 30 Sep 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Personal Networking: How to Make Your Connections Count (Paperback)
There is some good stuff in here, but most of it is recycled from other authors.
Fair enough in a way - it does form a useful summary.
But I had a real problem with the way it was written. For example (p. 133), "By the process of reducing your initial request you have planted a favour seed of a concession." What on earth does this mean - what's a 'favour seed of a concession'? I have no idea, and I'm inclined to think the author doesn't know exactly what he means either. Every couple of pages there's a bit of jargon like this that just makes me squirm.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
the least fluffy book on networking, 12 April 2005
This review is from: Personal Networking: How to Make Your Connections Count (Paperback)
Unlike the first reviewer, I found this book very useful. It's true that the book is like a summary of the whole field, but surely that is good? Most other networking books are full of waffle whereas this one is to the point and business-like. In addition to the normal networking advice the author encourages a balanced network by plotting charts and looking at yourself and the people you know. It is a practical book for if you actually want to network.
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