Is WHO you know more important than WHAT you know, if you want to be a business success?
 

I was leafing through a copy of "Real Estate Riches" today, by Dolf De Roos.... (This is in the "Rich Dad's Advisors" series of books....)

Anyway, at the very beginning of the book is a quote by Robert Kiyosaki, which struck me. Here's the part which got my attention -

My poor dad often said, "What you know is important." My rich dad said, "If you want to be rich, who you know is more important than what you know."
- Robert Kiyosaki, from "Real Estate Riches" by Dolf De Roos

What do you think - is this true? Is WHO you know more important than WHAT you know, if you want to be a big success in the business world?

To me, this speaks of the possibly incredible importance that can be found in having good contacts....

- Dien Rice

Re: Is WHO you know more important than WHAT you know? Absolutely
 

Knowing buyers, movers & shakers, and gatekeepers can open many doors, where all the wealth of knowledge a person has can be worthless if you can't reach the buyer.

It's been said many times that we are all in sales. Some of us sell products and/or services, while others primarily sell their knowledge, skills, times, and/or perspiration.
(Of course, many sell themselves shorts, and settle for less than their true worth.)

If a buyer in need doesn't know my name, I better have a contact who can make the connection for me. He may need a warehouse full of camouflage widgets delivered by next week, and I may know how and where to get them, but miss out if the buyer doesn't know I exist.

The gatekeepers are often time the secretaries, receptionists, middle management people or receptionists who we have regular contact with. They decide who and what gets past them to the person who has the authority to make the buying decisions.

The credit for much of my success goes to the many gatekeepers who have given me so many referrals. Some of my best clients came from personal referrals. The contact didn't know who I was, but the third-party connection made the business possible.

WHO you know can be the difference between success and mediocrity. Treat all gatekeepers with the respect they deserve. That same person can close the door for you and open it for your competitor.

Dennis Bevers




No camouflage widgets in stock, but 10,000 of other promotional products available.

It's NOT What You Know...NOR Is It Who You Know...BUT What You Do With It!
 

I'm assuming you are talking about business...

As a business consultant everyday I come across people that are smart, very smart. They read all the business journals. They've invested tons of money in seminars and books and courses. The Internet allows them to stay up to date on all sorts of business issues. They visit forums and take nuggets of information others have posted...and yet they do nothing. Or they do very little, way under what they are capable of. Sure they might have some sort of little business on the side but they really aren't growing it.

On the other hand I also know people that seem to know "everyone"...politians, business people, people in the financial markets--people that could allow someone to succeed in business, but as with the folks that accumulate information and don't apply it, we have someone that doesn't use the contacts they have.

I can safely say that the successful business people I know represent virtually every type of business person under the sun.

Some started through the help of others...some did not.

Some are extremely brights...some are not (but are smart enough to admit it and found ways to work around it--i.e. hire smarter people!)

The fact is, lots of knowledge or little knowledge...lots of contacts or few contacts the one thing common thread I've found that ties these successful people together was the willingness to try. Most of the time they risked time and or money and pushed ahead. Quite often they had to adjust their business plan (sometimes radically) but they did something with what they had instead of sitting on the sidelines waiting for the "perfect opportunity".

So in closing I do believe that while knowledge and contacts can make things easier (sometimes they do make things more difficult) the willingness to just try overshadows everything else.

Take care,

Mike Winicki

Of course it is!
 

The President and Vice-President both got their jobs based on who they know, rather than what they can do. Justin from "American Idol" is Samuel L. Jackson's nephew. And on and on and on.

Just my opinion....

- Boyd

It depends
 

Powerful friends only get you so far. They make it easy to get your foot in the door, but do not guarantee that you'll know a good deal when you see one or that you can run a business without running it into bankruptcy.

A good education gets you into SOME places -- but once you get there, it can make your efforts far more successful. Education can overcome a lot of shortcomings and provide you with a strategic advantage over the person with influence.




The Five Minute Mentor (October Update: My investing strategy and book picks)

Henry Ford's secret to success....
 

Hi Mike,

I agree - if you don't DO something, it's hard to get anywhere....

However, if you are already doing that, then which could be more important - "who" you know, or "what" you know?

In one of your earlier posts, you wrote about the importance of "VLPs" - Very Leveraged People. This might suggest that "who" you know could be more important....

Here's Mike's excellent earlier post on VLPs....

http://www.sowpub.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl?read=7281

One person also pointed out to me that if you know the right people, you don't need to know much - you just ask the right person your question, and if they know, they'll tell you the answer. You can "leverage" other people's knowledge too!

There's a story about Henry Ford, who was suing a Chicago newspaper for calling him an "ignorant pacifist" because he had little education.

The story goes that the opposing lawyer asked Henry Ford a string of trivia questions, designed to make Henry Ford look ignorant.

After a while, Ford became tired of these senseless questions and said,

"I may not have a Harvard law degree like yourself, but what I do have is a button on my desk, and when I push that button in a matter of minutes I can have a dozen or men in my office that can answer all of your silly questions. Not only can they answer your silly questions I am sure some of those can ask you questions that will make you look silly."

(So the story goes....)

This story clears up a puzzle for me - how can people with little formal education often be so successful? One possible answer, in addition to being "self-taught", is that people may also leverage the knowledge of other people around them.... Who they know can become a replacement for what they know....

Anyhow, these are interesting things to ponder!

- Dien Rice

Re: Is WHO you know more important than WHAT you know? Absolutely
 

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for posting that.... Knowing the right people can certainly make the way "smoother" in sales. But not only in sales... if you want investment dollars, or if you're looking for suppliers, or almost anything you can think of....

- Dien

Re: It depends
 

Hi Mel,

I agree with you that both are definitely important, but what's influencing my own thinking is that good contacts - it seems - can be a replacement for knowledge, but not vice versa.

For example, with recognizing good deals - if you know the right people with the right knowhow, it's possible they could recognize the good deals for you, based on their expertise....

Something like your "5 Minute Mentor" service I think is very valuable, since it lets people leverage your knowledge and experience. Often, using a service like yours is a wise thing for people to do....

I come from a super-over-educated background - like "poor dad's" advice, I was taught that what you know is important, and I was never taught the importance of who you know.... So, I'm only very begrudgingly now starting to come to the alternative viewpoint.... ;)

By the way, I just got the book "Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks" by Mark Buchanan (he a former features editor of Nature magazine, and has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics). (That's the American title - in the UK it's published with the title, "Small World: Uncovering Nature's Hidden Networks".) His book is aimed at a popular audience, but it treats the topic of "networks" more "scientifically" than any other book I've seen - I recommend it (from what I've read of it so far)....

- Dien Rice

The President's "secret" society....
 

> The President and Vice-President both got
> their jobs based on who they know, rather
> than what they can do. Justin from
> "American Idol" is Samuel L.
> Jackson's nephew. And on and on and on.

Hi Boyd,

Fascinating. I've recently been reading how George W. Bush is a member of the "Skull and Bones" super-elite secret society of Yale University. (The movie "The Skulls" of a few years ago was inspired by the "Skull and Bones" society....)

The "Skull and Bones" choose only 15 new members every year, among the Yale University third-year students. The students "tapped" (or picked) are pretty much always from highly elite families.

In the last 100 years, the USA has had three presidents who were members of the "Skull and Bones". This is remarkable, given how small a society it is! (The "Skull and Bones" members who also became U.S. presidents were William Howard Taft, George Bush Sr., and the current prez, George W. Bush.)

Before you accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist, I think the way a society like the "Skull and Bones" works is as a facilitator of elite contacts. Old "Bonesmen" help the new up-and-comers on their climb up the ladder of success, and the cycle perpetuates....

Anyhow, I thought this was fascinating stuff.... It also helps show how good contacts may be important in the "corridors of power"....

- Dien


Links about the "Skull and Bones"....

Neither is more important.
 

It is not who you know, or what you know, it's what you USE of your knowledge that is important.

The rest - trying to decide whether it is WHO or WHAT - is just hair splitting.

Michael Ross