something in common with you or not. You’re also more likely to actually build a new and lasting relationship with someone when you show your personality. Listening is also another important concept within small talk that you need to do, because when you listen to someone, it in turn makes them feel important. The main goal that you want to succeed at doing from small talk is to make sure you leave the person that you’re talking to interested in you. The conversation should also end in a way that invites the person to want to continue the relationship with you as well.
Having good listening skills is another concept that Ferrazzi stresses in his book. In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi states, “You should be governed by the idea that one should seek first to understand, then to be understood. We’re so often worried about what we’re going to say next that we don’t hear what is being said to us now. ” (Ferrazzi, pg 272). It tells us in our textbook that listening is the most fundamental skill that we need in order to succeed in all of our relationships. However, the book also tells us that we don’t always listen in the most effective way.
Within Never Eat Alone it describes to you a few ways for you to signal to someone who is talking and show them that you’re actually interested and listening to what they have to say. The first step that Ferrazzi tells us that we need to do is to spark the conversation by saying “hello”! When you do this, you’re showing that you’re confident and that you’re interested in that person. Some nonverbal cues that you can do as well to show interest in the speaker is to nod your head and keep eye contact.
Even asking meaningful questions to the speaker or even laughing at their jokes, also shows that you’re actually listening. Last, but definitely not least, Ferrazzi tells us that one of the most cardinal things that we should remember when meeting someone new and trying to build a relationship with them, is that we should ALWAYS remember that persons name. He states that you should, “visually attach a person’s name to his face,” and then remember to “repeat his name… periodically hroughout the conversation” (Ferrazzi, pgs 272-273). The next concept that Ferrazzi discusses is that you should stay connected to people. He tells those that are perusing a business adventure that “as an up-and-comer, you must work hard to remain visible and active among your even-budding network of friends and contacts” (Ferrazzi, pg 167). He continues by telling us that we should always take every opportunity to reach out to people and to take time to meet up with them as well.
This is why he also suggests that we as “business entrepreneurs” should have multiple social gatherings with the people that we have reached out to, just incase some freak incident happens during one, you can have another to make up for it. While all of these steps may be advised towards a business relationship, you can still relate them back to personal relationships. If you think back to your high school days, do you remember all of the friends that you had? You probably do.
Once you all graduated, were you able to stay in contact or did you all lose touch? You probably lost contact with most of them, if not all. Today, with all the technological advances, it is a lot easier to stay in contact with past friends from your childhood or even recent acquaintances. The only problem with that though, is that sometimes we lose interest. People start to change, we get lazy, we move away and start new lives, or just even become too busy and forget to stay connected.
No matter what your reason is, it is clearly stated within Never Eat Alone that the only way you’re ever going to be able to really succeed at keeping a good, healthy relationship, it is pertinent to play an active role and keep in contact with the other person. You could even apply this concept of staying connected to long distant relationships. Long distant relationships can be difficult for the fact that you’re both away from each other for long periods of times and is almost impossible to schedule frequent meet ups with each other to get some one on one time.
However, thats why we have social media and other technology centers, such as Face Time, that we can use to “see” each other and to help long distant relationships survive the distance. As you can see, the information in this section of Never Eat Alone can be used in many different instances. In the chapter “Follow up or Fail” Ferrazzi lets you know how important it is to make sure you follow up in our relationships. He says that it is crucial to success in almost any field of life. Following up, is also connected with the concept of staying connected as well.
According to Ferrazzi, “The most memorable gifts I have ever received are those whose value could not be measured in terms of dollars and cents. They are the heartfelt letters, e-mails, and cards I receive from people thanking me for guidance and advice” (Ferrazzi, pg 186). Like he said earlier following up is crucial to the success in any aspect of your life For example, if you have a party and you receive gifts, most commonly afterwards, you would take the time to write thank you cards to all those people who came to your party and gave you a gift.
In some cases, people might get offended if they gave you a gift and didn’t write them a thank you card later on. While this is just one case where a follow up can be used, another case could be that you’ve just met a new person, have found a lot of interest in that person and would love to see them again, but how and when do you tell them that you want to see them again without seeming desperate or awkward, but at the same time tell them that you’ve very interested in them?
In Never Eat Alone there are suggested “follow up times” that you could use to apply to that situation. First, Ferrazzi suggests that you should wait about twenty four hours before you contact that person again and tell them that you’re interested in them and would like to see them again. However, don’t say too much that could scare them away. Also it is always a good idea to follow up after you have an interview.
It doesn’t matter what type of interview it is, it’s always good to send a follow up note or email to your interviewer thanking them for their time and consideration. Ferrazzi also states that, when you write your follow up note or email, it is a good idea to reflect back to what was said in your previous meeting with the person to show that you were listening and interested in what was being said. In this chapter about following up, it discussed the proper ways to follow up with someone not only after a meeting, but in many other different situations as well.
In conclusion, Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone explains the concepts from our textbook Understanding Human Communication and connects them to real life situations, especially in the business world. Even though the main purpose of Never Eat Alone is to build relationships within a business setting, you can take those concepts and use them to assist you in building relationships with other people that you come across throughout your lifetime in many different settings.
