TL;DR
An anthology of short essays on relationship-based networking from about a hundred practitioners, compiled by BNI founder Ivan Misner and Don Morgan in 2000. Ron Sukenick was among the contributors.
Ivan Misner founded BNI, the business referral organization, in 1985. Fifteen years later he and Don Morgan gathered roughly a hundred people who networked for a living and asked each of them for the lesson that mattered most.
Masters of Networking is the result. Ron Sukenick was among its contributors.
What is Masters of Networking about?
Relationships that bring in business. The opening idea is BNI’s own motto, that masters of networking know givers gain. From there the book argues that networking is the most effective marketing tool there is, and then lets its contributors show what that looks like in practice.
The pieces are short, a few pages each, and they range widely.
Some are tactical, with advice on the memory hook, the one memorable line that makes people recall who you are and what you do. Others are stories, with titles like “A Lucky Coin” and “Parenthood by Networking.” The later sections deal with keeping a network alive over years, with communication, long-term partnerships and word-of-mouth marketing. The subtitle, Building Relationships for Your Pocketbook and Soul, sets the tone: networking done right is good for the bank account and good for the person doing it.
Bard Press released it in 2000. The later printings run well over three hundred pages. A Spanish edition, Maestros del Networking, followed in 2006.
Who are Ivan Misner and Don Morgan?
Misner holds a doctorate from the University of Southern California, and he built BNI from a single chapter into an international referral organization. Entrepreneur magazine called him the networking guru. He has written a long list of books on referral marketing.
Morgan came at it from a different direction. He held a master’s degree in community mental health and spent three decades as a consultant, psychotherapist and educator before becoming the founding national director of BNI Canada and the executive director of BNI Chicago. The pair later compiled a companion volume, Masters of Sales.
Why does Masters of Networking belong on this shelf?
It shows how the relationship-first approach looked before LinkedIn existed. Every idea that later moved online, give before you ask, follow up, connect people who can help each other, is here in its face-to-face form.
The format is worth noticing too. A book made of short contributions from many practitioners is one of the easiest ways for an association or a network to publish what its members know.
Keep reading
My tribute to Ron Sukenick: the relationship strategist who taught me the eight magic words of networking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Other Books From – Business and Economics
