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

CHAPTER 14Making Friends in a Natural Way : How to Get an Introduction without Seeming Pushy

For Dad, life was good, and what's more, it was always just about to get better. He awoke happy, and every day dawned on a wealth of opportunities that beckoned his ever‐curious mind to visit new places, to meet new people, to discover new adventures.

—Jim Nantz, American sportscaster and author of Always by My Side

It's not far‐fetched to say that David Maister has influenced our professions more than any other person. David was the first academic heavyweight to focus attention on accountants, lawyers, consultants, and others like us.

Until David came along in the 1980s, business scholars studied General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, or similar companies making and selling things such as cars, medicine, and household goods. Clearly important work, but academics overlooked people working in offices rather than manufacturing plants. David's specialty was studying companies whose assets walked in and out of buildings each day – companies that manufactured ideas, not widgets.

When David left his teaching career at Harvard Business School, he was relatively unknown, except perhaps in academic circles. He went on to write many best‐selling books that line the shelves of glass‐and‐steel office towers throughout the world; The Trusted Advisor is the most well‐known. My well‐thumbed copies of his books are within arm's reach every day.

Now, the plot thickens. When I was in my first year of graduate ...