Chapter 7The Flow: Being Prepared to Assure Smooth Sailing

Be prepared and informedso you can carry on acasual, topical conversation.

Once you accept that sharing a meal with someone is an important step in building your relationships, why would you not have breakfast, lunch, or dinner meetings scheduled five, eight, or 10 times a week? Knowing the value of something and not applying it is a tragic mistake. But for many people, business lunches can be as awkward as a blind date: uncomfortable silence, bad service, not knowing what to talk about. We’ve all been there.

If you can’t handle this kind of social activity, there are two things you can do. First, you can learn to handle it so well that you actually begin to enjoy doing business this ...

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