How to Win Client Business When You Don't Know Where to Start

CHAPTER 12The Two Hundred People You Need to Know : The Closest Thing to Knowing Something Is Knowing Where to Find It

Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don't make compromises. Don't worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work…and if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.

—William Burroughs, American writer and artist

Respect and trust are the currency of our trades. You may be a strategist, litigator, auditor, or designer by profession, but at the end of the day we're all in the relationship business. And the foundation of authentic relationships is respect and trust between those who need help and those who can provide help.

Each of us has roughly 200 people who would make all the difference if we knew them. Not 2000 or 2 million – but 200. Having a close relationship with these 200 people could make our careers.

For Dominic Barton – the former managing director of McKinsey & Co. we met earlier – the number is 500. When Dominic reads, he imagines that he is reading for his 500 friends and colleagues. If he finds something that could be helpful to one of them, he sends a handwritten note along with the article or book.

Whether your number is 200 or 500, our professional world is much smaller than we might at first realize. Our relatively small network of professionals provides an enormous source of value for everyone involved – through the currency of shared respect and trust.

Genuine ...