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Summary: Author's review of DIG YOUR WELL BEFORE YOUR'RE THIRSTY
Review: Before reading DIG YOUR WELL BEFORE YOUR'RE THIRSTY I first of all found the title catchy. It lets you know the book is basically geared toward career or business use of networking. It also places much emphasis on the planning aspects of networking. The author takes great pains in giving examples of testimonials to the power of networking. Lou Holtz's Networking Story is a good example of how networking paid off big time. He talks about the basics of what a network is and is not. He explains that networking is a two-way activity. Today you help someone who is networking and tomorrow that same person may help you or others to network for ideas. The author goes to great length to encourage those who might be a bit timmed about approaching another person in a networking situation to go for it. He uses humor to make his point by saying "Come on in, No shark sighting today." The only minor criticism I have of the work is that it is limited to focusing on networking only in the career transition and business area. There are many more areas that networking principles can be applied. Overall I would give it a four star rating. John C. Durkin
author of NETLIVING 101, Networking Life's Journey
Cleveland, Ohio
Rating: 
Summary: Networking for success (The Mackay way)
Review: Diq your well before you're thirsty is the only networking book you'll ever need. In 83 chapters and 310 pages you'll learn everything you need to know to succeed. My first Mackay book was the famous "Swim with the Sharks without getting eaten alive." A book that helped millions of Americans. Now Mackay delves deep ino the art of which he's a master: networking. In todays shark-eat-shark economy, talent alone will not save you. Genuis will not. Experience will not. Guts and hard work will not. If you need a job money, advice, help, hope, or a means to make a sale, there's only one surefire, fail safe place to find them---in your network. But only if you have one. Dig your well before you're thirsty contains Harvey's gold-chip advice, accumulated over a lifetime of business success, on how to build and maintain the network you need. Harvey guarantees you'll never be more than a phone call away from a person in the position to help you get what you want---whether it's the job opportunity of a lifetime or a lifetime partner, the sales prospect of your dreams or the career advice you've only dreamed of. HArvey shows you how to create a network of trusted, valuable contacts that is worth it's weight in platinum. Harvey is uniquely qualified to write this book drawing on his own networking success. You will learn from Harvey's own energizing examples and those he gleaned from world-class networkers like Muhammed Ali, Lou Holtz, Erma Bombeck, Larry King, and Pat O'Brien. Harvey is at his practical, insightful, entertaining best and shows step by step: * how to get to know the people you need to know * how to ask for what you need when you need it * how to keep relationships up to date and alive * how to sparkle in the information age and on the internet * how to unlock any door...anywhere...at any time. Harvey Mackay is more than just a bestselling author and one of America's most sought after busineess speakers, but he is a man who has done it himself and is still an active CEO. Toastmasters International has called him one of the top five speakers in the world. Two of Harveys books made the top 15 inspiritual-self help book list by the New York Times. Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty is replete with "Harvey-isms" like "Networking is not a numbers game. The idea is not to see how many people you can meet; the idea is to compile a list of people you can count on" and "Most people have never figured out that it is better to spend time with fewer people at a one-hour cocktail party amd have a meaningful dialogue than practice the andering-eye routine and lose the respect of most of the people they meet." In these shark-infested times, Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty is a must read, provides real stories and information from the real world with real solutions. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: This book is Chocolate-covered Spinach
Review: Harvey MacKay has really struck home with the great book about networking. After only a day of blazing through this book, I found about a dozen or more NECESSARY! tips to write down. And this book is a fast and delectable read! It's not fair. How can a book that reads so easily and so well be so packed with essentials for conducting yourself on a day-to-day basis? That's why I call this book Chocolate-covered Spinach. It's something indulgent wrapped around something necessary.
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Summary: Credit Card? Don't Leave Home Without Your Rolodex!
Review: Harvey Mackay shows the reader - be it Homemaker or Fortune 500 Exec - why everyone needs a network. This is not another oh-so-common how-to book that reads more like the author's bio and collection of non-relevant stories - his personal experiences and humorous anecdotes truly illustrate the importance of why everyone needs a network. After he has you convinced that WHO you know is as important as WHAT you know, he then takes it a step further and tells you HOW to go about doing it. I have not had the attention span to read an entire book in over two years - I DEVOURED and ABSORBED this in 24 hours. P.S.: Add my e-mail address to your Rolodex
Rating: 
Summary: Great Start To Your Overall Networking Life
Review: Harvey Mackay's book approaches the practice of networking in a wide sense: strategies for initiating and maintaining relationships at any stage of your life with as many people as possible from as many walks of life as possible in as many situations as possible for a variety of different ends, both for yourself and for the people you network with.
The book is divided into ten sections (Mackay calls them steps) which play upon the well metaphor:
1. Jump In, the Water's Fine! - reasons why you should network (26 pages)
2. Time To Prime The Well! - starting out with the right approach to networking (23 pages)
3. Start Digging! - building the foundation of your networking: the essential elements of a network and basic networking strategies (45 pages)
4. Sharpen Your Edge! - refining your networking skills (35 pages)
5. Excavate Your Unique Skills! - recognizing and using your personal uniqueness to your advantage to build your network (31 pages)
6. Dig Deeper! - refining your networking using your personal uniqueness (29 pages)
7. Don't Fall In! - networking pitfalls: how not to network (23 pages)
8. Minding The Well! - maintaining your network (39 pages)
9. All's Well That End's Well! - additional insights into networking (27 pages)
10. Drinking from the Well ... and Sharing the Wealth! - final thoughts/summary (7 pages)
The book is very useful as a roadmap for utilizing all your relationships: it prompts you to think about where you could go with virtually every relationship you've ever had. Therefore, the older you are and the more people you already know, the more this book will probably speak to you.
However, for people wanting to network to gain business prospects and convert them into customers in the near future, the book is limited. For instance, of Mackay's top 4 places for building your network (Alumni Clubs, Industry Associations, Social Clubs, and Hobbies) only one of them (Industry Associations) seems to be a viable way of getting business prospects sooner rather than later. A reviewer of Mackay's book on Amazon.com commented "this (book) is more an autobiography of Mackay's networking than the art of networking itself." It's challenging to keep in touch with people you've met at networking events and maintain meaningful relationships. Mackay's chapter on keeping in touch with your network speaks to maintaining ties that are already well established, but these tactics would come off as unctuous and inappropriate with people you barely know but want to have a greater relationship with.
Mackay does have strategies for establishing ties with new people. However, I find his approach distasteful. Mackay encourages establishing rapport with people you want to reach by finding personal facts about them and shamelessly initiating conversations with them. Mackay actually reads a periodical called Who's Who which details the personal lives and accomplishments of executive America. When he meets someone he's read up on he initiates the conversation with this personal information as if he were a good buddy ole pal come round to visit. In the same way, Mackay advises that when you meet a couple you have not met before, ask how they met; they will begin to tell you the story of their lives, and you quickly have new best friends. Does this approach really work with most people? Another Amazon reviewer has similar reservations about Mackay's sincerity: "His book reminded me too much in spots of the old Sicilian (i.e. mafia) saying: "I don't do favors, I accumulate debts." Or as that saying is illustrated in The Godfather by Mario Puzo in the wedding scene of the book, where Michael Corleone is telling his future wife, Kay, about Don Corleone; Kay says to Michael: "Everything you've told me about him [Don Corleone] shows him doing something for other people. He must be good hearted..." And Michael answers, "I guess that's the way it sounds. But let me tell you this. You know those Arctic explorers who leave caches of food scattered on the route to the North Pole? Just in case they may need them some day? That's my father's favors. Some day he'll be at each one of these people's houses, and they'd better come across." That's the mentality that is projected throughout much of DIG YOUR WELL BEFORE YOU'RE THIRSTY. But then Mark MacCormack, who wrote WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH YOU AT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL, said that The Godfather by Mario Puzo is one of the best business manuals ever written. What's that tell you about the business world? Since that is perhaps the reality of the business world, this book should prove quite helpful for dealing with it."
However, Mackay offers a number of interesting strategies and insights for networking for prospects. Mackay says the greatest networkers of all are American presidents, providing anecdotes about the strategies of George HW Bush Sr., Clinton, Nixon, Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson. He notes how small countries like Israel and South Africa networked their way into media prominence whereas larger countries who lack such media savvy are routinely ignored. One of Mackay's most striking insights is that "its lonely at the top" and how you can take advantage of that. He relates the story of Scoops ice cream shop who offered Hollywood stars only "a scoop of ice cream" for attending their store opening. They received signed pictures from stars like Frank Sinatra and Robert DeNiro. By the same loneliness token, many executives are more communicative and approachable than you'd think. Consquently, when Mackay tries to reach an executive's office and encounters a gatekeeper receptionist, he discusses strategies for working with the gatekeeper rather than circumventing them to access the executive.
While it's questionable how much you can learn about and access the executive through the receptionist, it's a strategy worth trying a few times. It's certainly good practice to get to know better placed people in a company who aren't necessarily decision makers. Virtually every person I've ever met at networking events who call me afterward, wanting to reach the company president, do exactly the opposite. They only want to use me as a company directory and hurdle me. I find this offensive - why would I refer a complete unknown to the president and put my reputation on the line in doing so? But more importantly, these people are passing up an excellent insider source of company information: me. I've found the tell-tale sign of these sorts of people is their reaction when you ask them to give in some way: give me an indication that you are skilled, trustworthy, reputable, know your industry; show an interest in wanting to know about me, the company, what we do, etc. I remember one person who really showed her colours when she tried to `hurdle' me on her way to the president. I even offered her a lot of information on what the president would probably want for a PR campaign, and asked for her input. Yet she still didn't do a single thing to work with me and develop the plan and disappeared completely. If she had shown a willingness to work with me rather than against me, I surely would have given her a personal referral to the president, and she would have had insider information for the basis of a PR campaign to approach him with. Another guy e-mailed me, asking to access my network because (according to him) I could offer them the benefit of his fine financial advisory services. I wrote back to him, asking if we could discuss some sort of trade of contacts where he could tap only the people he needed in my network (IE the people I knew would want to hear about his services) and I could tap only the people I needed in his network (people who need my products/services). I never heard back from him. He showed he was purely out for himself, uninterested in any reciprocity. Why would I refer someone like that to my contacts?
Despite Mackay's questionable sincerity in forging new relationships, his networking ethics are sound. For instance, I agree with his four basic elements of networking, encapsulated by the acronym RISK: Reciprocity, Interdependency, Sharing and Keeping At It. Further, he illustrates the importance of honesty and full disclosure with his anecdote of keynoting a meeting of the top 500 customers of Corning, the glassware company. Before Mackay's speech, Corning surveyed the audience on virtually every aspect of their product line via a push button, anonymous poll. After the poll, Corning actually laid all the poll results bare in front of that audience, favourable or unfavourable. The Corning rep then said that they now knew what work had to be done. Mackay said it was the first time he'd seen customers "who were ready to climb over their chairs to place their orders." Mackay also notes Dale Carnegie's truism: "You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one."
Closely related to being honest with others is being true to yourself. Mackay strongly advocates doing what you love and using it as a way to network, in his case golf, and how far that alone took him in building his network. Not coincidentally, Mackay says that the greatest networking organization in the world is also one of the most personal: Alcoholics Anonymous. An anecdote from Muhammad Ali has him meeting a photographer from Life magazine who specialized in underwater photography. He said that the recently turned pro Ali had no chance of getting in Life. Ali used this man's speciality to his own advantage, telling the photographer that he practiced his boxing underwater as a training method, even though he barely knew how to swim. The result was an innovative picture spread in Life of Ali shadowboxing underwater.
In a similar way, Mackay is also emphatic about another way of being true to yourself and using it to your advantage: networking with the people close to you. That includes neighbours, colleagues, relatives, even those close to the people you want to reach - wives, children, and so on.
Mackay has good advice on how to approach networking as a newcomer. He advocates joining a Toastmasters chapter as a great preparation for networking. He prescribes 16 types of people essential to anyone's network. He mentions a few preferred contact management software titles. He also helps you distinguish good from bad networking - networking vs. gossip, social vs. business networking. He provides a networking self assessment test and even points how the differences between how men and women network. Perhaps the book can be best summed up with a quote Mackay provides:
"Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge
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Summary: Very good book Mr. MacKay
Review: I couldn't put this book down!! The most effective personal networking book ever written hands down!! I loved it!
Rating:
Summary: a good self-help book
Review: If you want to read more self-help books but you're tired of the same old put-on-a-happy-face drivel, this may be the book for you. The main theme of the book is this: keep a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers of people you meet and stay in touch with them. Moreover, do occasional favors for them because you might someday need favors FROM them. The book is interesting. It is liberally dosed with anecdotes and second-person pronouns--two factors which help greatly in making a book interesting. However, I'm ashamed that I haven't put the book into better practice. In response to the book, I made an e-mail mailing list of people whom I know and sent them an annual newsletter--except that I skipped last year because I didn't have anything to say. I hope you read this book, and I hope you put it into practice better than I have.
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Summary: A Must For Career Seekers
Review: Mr. McKay's book is full of good practical advice on how to use networking to get ahead. I have read other networking how to books, and his is the best by far. Much of what he talks about is just plain commonsense, but I was surprised by the other techniques he mentioned.
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Summary: It's not easy, but it works!
Review: Networking effectively is HARD WORK. Most people don't have the determination to keep up with the due diligence to be successful. Harvey Mackay has written a book that is full of real world stories (many his own) demonstrating the power of networking and relationships. It's written in a style that is very easy to read. Put it in your briefcase or on your night stand, and prepare to be entertained as well as informed. Nothing comes easy, but if you want to greatly increase your chances of success, following Harvey Mackay's advice is a huge step toward your goals. Buy this book right now.
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Summary: Navigating the Modern World
Review: The author suggests that we are all well educated , well read or perhaps we are not well educated or well read. In any case to survive in this world , we need friends , we need contacts , we need a network. We have to keep building this as we meander along in life. Serendipity is not the way to this , rather a systematic approach can be adopted. One should not be out on a limb without friends when one is out of a job, or sick or lonely. One should know or know of the best doctor in town for cancer , paediatric problems,heart diesease - this should not hit us when we need it and have no time to find out. This is how the author sees the world and in his very simple and effective manner , rich with real world examples he shows why this is necessary and how to do it. Harvey Mackay did not get where he did without having a deep well to draw from , from envelope manufacturer to a respected US celebrity , he has scaled the Mt Everest of achievement and in this book this absolutely delightful and generous person shares his insights. I cannot tell how empowered one feels after reading this book , but can definitely say that I wish I had read it a lot earlier.
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