Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty

Mackay (Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive) devotes much of this work to delivering essentially one message--it's not what you know, but who you know. In his breezy style, he covers aspects of why networking is important to one's career, and how to build a network. Mackay includes the 10 commandments of networking such as ""I will never say no to the other guy"" and ""I won't stall I'll answer the call,"" as well as a top-10 list of networking mistakes like not assuming that credentials are power or confusing visibility with credibility. Also featured are networking stories by such personalities as Muhammad Ali, ex-football coach Lou Holtz and Neiman-Marcus founder Stanley Marcus. Each of Mackay's 83 chapters ends with a ""Mackay's Maxim"" such as the one that explains the book's title--""People aren't strangers if you've already met them. The trick is to meet them before you need their help."" As Jack Kemp notes in his introduction, ""This is the book that shows you how to achieve a permanent network in a Post-it note world."" (May)