Category Archives: The Social Capitalist

Win a Copy of Reid’s Book

3 comments By The Social Capitalist

In last week’s episode of the Social Capitalist, Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, interviewed Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and author of The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career.

Some of the key discussion points included:

  • The backstory: how and why Reid launched LinkedIn
  • How thinking like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur enhances success in any career
  • How Reid personally leverages his LinkedIn page
  • The keys to maximizing your network literacy, the ability to conceptualize, access, and benefit from the information flowing through your social network

Win a copy of Reid’s book!: Listen to the MP3 (or read the transcript) and tell us in the comments of this post what your favorite takeaway was. SC Host Sara Grace will pick her three favorites and notify winners via email next week.

Click here to get the audio recording and transcript from the interview.

Why Christine Comaford Says You Should Approach Your Next Contact Palm-Up

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Christine Comaford is an entrepreneur, author, and consultant. In her Social Capitalist Live Event interview she said that she has been through at least 11 reinventions of herself. Here she shares some of her best advice about building relationships based on generosity.

Christine says:

“The number one thing is networking palm up. What most people do is palm-down networking. “What can I get?” They go to a cocktail party, they’re trying to grab stuff. That’s palm down. Palm-up networking is finding out what somebody needs and helping them get it. You’re going to get yours later, the universe has a perfect accounting system. So if people simply change their networking approach to be palm up, you walk around at a cocktail party, you ask what business they’re in: “Wow, that’s cool, how did you get into that business?” Everybody has a great story as to how they’ve gotten into their business. “Wow, what’s your ideal client?” “Oh, I might know some of those guys. I’ll follow up with you next Tuesday.” Continue reading →

Joe Navarro: Building Harmony Through Seating Arrangements

1 comment By The Social Capitalist

As one of the original founding members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Program, Joe Navarro mastered the ability to read nonverbal body language. When he retired in 2003, he discovered his expertise and skills could be taught, to benefit everyone from professional poker players to executives who wanted an extra edge. Since then, he has authored numerous books, including the classic What Every BODY Is Saying.

When Navarro sat down with Tahl Raz, co-author of Never Eat Alone, he shared some insider observations about where and how to stand to appear less threatening.

Walk up to somebody and stand right in front of them. If we were to put meters on you, we would see that your blood pressure goes up – and yet we know that if you were to stand at an angle to that person, your blood pressure would go down and you’d actually feel better about talking to this person. So, the angle is important to helping someone relax.
Continue reading →

Next Week: Keith Ferrazzi and LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman LIVE

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On Tuesday, June 12 at 12:30pm ET, join Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, in conversation with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and author of The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, at this month’s Social Capitalist Live Event.

Register here for the live Webex event!

During the lively, 45-minute discussion with audience Q&A, you’ll learn:

  • The backstory: how and why Reid launched LinkedIn
  • How thinking like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur enhances success in any career
  • How Reid personally leverages his LinkedIn page
  • The keys to maximizing your network literacy, the ability to conceptualize, access, and benefit from the information flowing through your social network

…And much, much more! If you can’t make it, register anyway – we’ll send you a recording and transcript afterwards.

What people are saying about The Start-up of You:

“The Internet has fundamentally changed the architecture of business and society. This terrific book shows you how to live, learn, and thrive in a networked world.”

“Crammed with insights and strategies to help each of us create the work life we want.”

“…start with an idea and work over your entire career to adapt it into something remarkable. This book distills the key techniques needed to succeed.”

See you there!

Jeffrey Pfeffer: To Be a More Effective Relationship Broker, You Need New Friends

No Comments By The Social Capitalist, Tips

Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford University Professor and author of Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t, is also the author of a popular business school case study based on myGreenlight founder Keith Ferrazzi. During his Social Capitalist interview, Professor Pfeffer explained the importance of becoming central in your network and taking on what he calls a brokerage role.

Brokers, even the literal term, bring people together. I mean, if you think about it, what is a venture capitalist? A venture capitalist links people with technology with people with money. And the people with money probably know other people with money. They don’t know people with technology and vice versa. So the broker fills this kind of structural hole and brings the two groups together.

That’s one of the things that effective networkers do. They find people who could benefit from being in contact with each other and put them in contact. And thereby, their sales profit from bringing those groups together. By the way, in order to do that, you have to do something that I think Keith really exemplifies and great networkers do, which is that you have to meet a diverse and broad set of people from a variety of industries and from a variety of walks of life. Continue reading →

Joe Navarro: A Big Sign of How Well Your Presentation is Going

No Comments By The Social Capitalist

As one of the original founding members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Program, Joe Navarro mastered the ability to read nonverbal body language. When he retired in 2003, he discovered his expertise and skills could be taught, to benefit everyone from professional poker players to executives who wanted an extra edge. Since then, he has authored numerous books, including the classic What Every BODY Is Saying.

Here, a brief excerpt from Joe’s Social Capitalist interview with Tahl Raz. What’s the first clue that you have lost your audience?

Go to any conference where the students, the workers, executives, whoever, don’t like the speaker, and all of a sudden you’ll see that they begin to put an object on top of themselves—a briefcase, a purse, a laptop. But when they’re in the presence of somebody that they enjoy, they begin to unveil themselves by getting rid of these objects. So, there’s lots of behaviors that show, I’m really interested, I’d like to get to know you more, I’d like to get closer to you, and so forth. And a lot of that has to do with we begin to show features of comfort in our forehead, our eyes, our face, and so forth.

So during a presentation, keep an eye on the audience to see if they begin to unveil themselves and settle into the topic. For more great insights on nonverbal cues, read the entire Social Capitalist transcript: Social Capitalist – Joe Navarro. Click here for the audio recording.

Christine Comaford’s Tip for Making Sure Your Message Gets Through

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During her dynamic interview as part of our Social Capitalist series, Christine Comaford shared the concept of metaprograms. Created by Rodger Bailey, these are lenses through which people see the world.  Knowing which lens is in use is key to making sure your message is heard and received.

Christine says:

“The first metaprogram is towards or away. Each of these meta-programs is polarized. So if somebody is like, “Yes, I want to launch new initiatives, I want goals, I want forward motion,” that’s a towards person. An away person is all about risk mitigation: “Let’s be cautious, let’s not go crazy and jump in.”

The CEOs, the marketing people, the sales people, are often towards people. The CIOs, maybe, the accounting people, maybe HR, are away. So if you’re trying to get a CFO on board of a certain initiative, you say, “Hey, you know what? Let’s be real cautious, let’s make sure we’ve got all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed.” They’re going to feel a sense of rapport with you. Now you’re not this crazed sales or marketing or other type of towards person who wants to mow them down.

The next one is options or procedures. Options people are like, “Wow, here’s all these possibilities. We could do this and that and that,” and everybody’s all excited. Procedures people, listening to that, are getting freaked out. Procedures people are thinking, “OK, I just need to know step one, step two, step three, because I don’t want to mess it up. Don’t give me all those choices.” Continue reading →

You’re Invited: Keith Ferrazzi and LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman LIVE

2 comments By The Social Capitalist

Join Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, in conversation with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and author of The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, at this month’s Social Capitalist Live Event, Tuesday, June 12 at 12:30 PM ET (NOTE UPDATED TIME!)

Register here for the live Webex event!

During the lively, 45-minute discussion with audience Q&A, you’ll learn:

  • The backstory: how and why Reid launched LinkedIn
  • How thinking like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur enhances success in any career
  • How Reid personally leverages his LinkedIn page
  • The keys to maximizing your network literacy, the ability to conceptualize, access, and benefit from the information flowing through your social network

…And much, much more! If you can’t make it, register anyway – we’ll send you a recording and transcript afterwards.

What people are saying about The Start-up of You:

“The Internet has fundamentally changed the architecture of business and society. This terrific book shows you how to live, learn, and thrive in a networked world.”

“Crammed with insights and strategies to help each of us create the work life we want.”

“…start with an idea and work over your entire career to adapt it into something remarkable. This book distills the key techniques needed to succeed.”

See you there!

Heidi Roizen Tells You How to Mint Your Own Currency

1 comment By The Social Capitalist, Tips

Social Capitalist Heidi Roizen is known as Silicon Valley’s most legendary networker, but she had to build those relationships from the ground up just like anyone else. In this week’s tip she shares advice about finding and creating the currency you can offer to build a generosity-based relationship with anyone.

Heidi says:

“I do think there’s something truthful in asking the questions of any relationship you build, what do you bring to the table for that other person? What is the context of the relationship? What can you offer? Everyone has something to offer, but I think that people don’t realize it, particularly those who are just starting out.

Let’s take a situation where you want to get to know someone in your community who runs a company. Maybe you can’t do something directly for them, but maybe they’re involved in a charitable organization and you can go volunteer, work to death, and help with membership. You can go and do something. And eventually, as I find in many charitable organizations, it’s pretty easy to work your way up the ranks, if you devote some time and energy to doing it. And eventually, you will end up in a circle with that person or have an opportunity to talk to them. Continue reading →