A Book Recommendation From Dan Beaulieu

Strategic Connections:

By Anne Baber, Lynne Waymon, Andre Alphonso, Jim Wylde

Copyright 2015 Amacom

Price $21.95

Pages: 242 and Index

Strategic Connections is about real people connecting with other real people. The book shows you how to get your head out of your screen and talk to people, nay communicate with people on a face to face basis. In some ways it is a guide book to good old fashion face to face getting to know people. They authors spend a great deal of time assisting the reader to be more authentic. To become more likeable in order to really connect with the people in your network.

From the value of using someone’s name to smiling at someone to showing you how to rate your relationships these guys are teaching genuineness and what that means.

Up to ten years ago there was more of a sincerity in our relationships. We were without the interference and false premises of web driven social media tools. Now with the onset of Facebook and Linkedin and email relationships we are rapidly losing the art of true relationships with those of us in our network and I for one feel it is time to get back to that.

There is a chapter about analyzing your contacts, ratting them to see how deep they run. From the book:

Rating your relationships:

Does my contact:

• Know me well enough to recognize me “out of context” in a new setting?
• Know that I am good at what I do…
• Respond quickly to requests from me?
• Know what kind of people can use my expertise…
• Tell me the truth, keep confidences and have my vest interest at heart.

And so on …

Let’s be honest here if someone had given me this book twenty years ago I might have found it mildly interesting; actually I might have wondered why this book was written in the first place. But not today. I know exactly why this book was written and exactly why we need this book right now. We are not really talking to one another any longer. We are so busy filtering people through social media that we don’t get to know the real people. And on a more serious note I am a consultant who coaches salespeople and the biggest challenge facing salespeople today is getting real life meetings with real live people. Everything is done on line. Buyers don’t want to take the time to see the salesperson or listen to her story. This has now come to the point where companies are no longer interacting and thus the level on communications and hence understanding between a customer and his vendor is deteriorating at a rapid pace. And that is exactly why this book is so valuable and why I am hoping that this book will sell millions of copies. The world needs to re-invent the art of people talking to people; people connecting with people and people working, playing and cooperating with one another on a true face to face basis.

I am buying copies of this book for all of my clients and I would urge you to do the same.