Agile Sales

More effective and less awkward strategies for building professional connections and building your network.

Adam Grant invites Pejman, a successful venture capitalist that migrated to the USA to tell his success story, having landed in North America with only $700. Pejman tells that he started off as a worker at a car wash and later graduated to selling rugs where he established his lifelong pivotal connections. The rugs business opened doors for him to network with people around Silicon Valley, which prompted Pejman to start investing in tech startups. He recalls how he turned one of his clients, Lou, who called Pejman for rug maintenance, into a rug collector. And how later, after 20 years, Pejman is now investing in one of Lou's tech startups.

Even people who find it repugnant can do it effectively.

The article is based on a research study aimed to mitigate the belief that networking is unnecessary. The authors interviewed 165 lawyers at a large North American law firm to determine their key drivers of success. According to the results, the lawyers depended on their ability to network effectively both internally (to get themselves assigned to choice clients) and externally (to bring business into the firm). As such, the authors argue that in today’s world, networking is a necessity and suggest four strategies to help people change their mindset.