How do you get the biggest names in publishing, marketing and business to return your calls? How do you get them to join you for an intimate evening? How do you pack a private event with more than 40 top-tier journalists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you asked Sol Orwell, founder of Examine, he\u2019d tell you it comes down to one ingredient: cookies. Well, maybe two: cookies and a cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On November 4, 2017, Sol Orwell and Tammy Tibbetts, CEO and co-founder of She\u2019s the First<\/a>, played host to a veritable who\u2019s who of influencers at the first annual NYC Charity Chocolate Chip Cookie Off<\/a>. Notable attendees included best-selling author Seth Godin; personal finance guru Ramit Sethi; Nick Ganju, whose company ZocDoc was valued in the billions; Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of No<\/a>t Giving a F*ck<\/em>; and the king of food-related networking himself, Keith Ferrazzi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part media event, part philanthropy, the Cookie Off reveals two ingredients perfect for not only leading your own networking event but also for networking itself. And just like any great recipe, what you leave out is often more important than what you put in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At first, cookies might sound like an odd centerpiece to world-class networking<\/a>. But they serve as a metaphor. Take, for instance, the attendance of Seth Godin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHere\u2019s the truth,\u201d Orwell told me, \u201cI don\u2019t really know Seth Godin. Seth was there because his wife Helene\u2019s bakery, By the Way Bakery, was competing with a gluten-free loaf she\u2019s been perfecting for years. When I was chatting with Helene, at no point did I ask if her husband was coming. It wasn\u2019t about him; it was about her. It was about what she did and her excitement. If she brought, Seth\u2014cool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I asked Brian Dean, a <\/a>search-engine optimization entrepreneur, why he\u2019d made the trip from Berlin, his answer echoed the same sentiments: \u201cWas flying 3,965 miles worth it? Definitely. Do these folks know more people than the average Joe? Probably. But that\u2019s not why I wanted to meet them. I didn\u2019t fly all that way to meet person X because she knows person Y. Instead, I traveled halfway across the world to rub elbows with funny, smart and positive people themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The temptation in networking is to constantly trade up the chain, to let our egos taint and eventually spoil what would otherwise be a healthy relationship<\/a>. One eye on the person in front of us, the other runs ahead to who they know and what they can do. Such an attitude not only ruins one-on-one relationships<\/a>, but also any chance of who might come next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone<\/a><\/em>, put it to me like this: \u201cIt\u2019s all about the person and being a high-quality person yourself. Game-changing relationships evolve in three phases: who you know and are connected to, how you create a supportive community among them, and how you <\/a>co-elevate with each other to drive change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of looking for greener pastures, our aim must be to focus both eyes on who we\u2019re actually speaking to<\/em>. Or, perhaps even better, all eyes on something beyond us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the big day arrived, more than 40 journalists from publications like Forbes<\/em>, Entrepreneur<\/em>, Fortune<\/em>, Men\u2019s Health<\/em>, Business Insider<\/em> and SELF<\/em> arrived as well. Naturally, they hadn\u2019t found their way to the party by accident; they\u2019d all been invited. But similar to the previous point, how they\u2019d been invited holds the key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wanted them to meet me and my friends and get to know the positive impact we\u2019re trying to make,\u201d Orwell explained. \u201cSure, I was organized about it. I had a spreadsheet with their names, emails, social handles and publications. But what I didn\u2019t do was say, \u2018Hey, you should come and cover this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>The Cookies: Networking is about the person, not<\/em> who they know.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Cause: Networking is about giving, not<\/em> getting.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n