Networking takes work. Be strategic and touches more people, leveraging “hub” and “invest” in the relationship by reciprocating and making “deposits” – not just be a “taker,” who calls on people for specific purpose only and disappear afterward.

What I have learned:
– Use elevator pitch to tell people what you do and keep people interested like “keeping the clients off the cover of major newspapers.”
– Make goals to contact people on a weekly and monthly basis. Number counts.
– Network all the time, not just when you need to job hunt.
– Use technology like PDA or computer. Prune your contact list on a monthly basis.

This audio book is fairly short ~ 70 mins and there are many “actor/actress” voices to keep the flow interesting – unlike most of the audio books, which are often narrated by the author or a narrator. The message is simple and yet to the point. Good listen.

The 21 ways are:
1. Set the table: Think on paper! One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all!
2. Plan every day in advance
3. Apply the 80/20 Rule to everything
4. Consider the consequences
5. Continually practice the powerful “ABCDE Method” or priority-setting technique that you can use every single day! The power of this technique lies in its simplicity. Start with a list of everything you have to do for the coming day. Think on paper by placing an “A, B, C, D, or E before each item on your list — before you begin the first task.
6. Focus on “key result areas”
7. Obey the law of forced efficiency
8. Prepare thoroughly before you begin
9. Do your homework
10. Leverage your special talents
11. Identify your key constraints
12. Take it one oil barrel at at time
13. Put the pressure on yourself
14. Maximize your personal powers
15. Motivate yourself into action
16. Practice creative procrastination
17. Do the most difficult task first
18. Slice and dice the task — how to “swiss cheese” and “salami slice” your big work tasks for a specific time period.
19. Create large chunks of time to concentrate on specific goals or projects
20. Develop a sense of urgency
21. Single handle every task (not multi-task)

This link is a very helpful summary.

The key messages from the author is to focus eating the biggest “frog” at a time with a solid plan and do it now. I like the simplicity of the method and I know it works. Nowadays, people often get distracted by all the emails, phone, instant messages and etc and fail to focus on the most important task. I probably listened to the audio book three times already. Most of the lessons are common sense. But the following areas stand out for me:
1. Tackle the most difficult task first. I often found it hard to do that but I think that’s the right thing to do. It’s hard to imagine myself eating a frog.
2. Creative procrastination is a great idea. The hard part is not to turn into a habitual procrastination.
3. Single tasking is right on the money. Nowadays, the quality of work in general has degraded due to the multiple distractions people face all the time.

This book makes sense and its lessons should be drilled into our brain. I’ll probably listen to it once every two months or so.

Mr. Skorman seems to be wired for entrepreneurship, a true hyperactive right brainer, who can see the big picture better than executing detailed work. Being good a picking retail location, he started the Empire Video stores during the peak of the video rental industry and made lots of money from it. He then hopped on the dot com fever and started the reel.com which was sold to Hollywood Video for $100M. After a brief hiatus, he started “HungryMind.com” to pay forward. When it failed, he took on starting “Elephant Pharmacy” in Berkeley, which he sunk nearly his entire retirement money.

The lessons he offered:
– For retailing, the location is very critical. Take your time picking the best location possible.
– Don’t underestimate the power of technology. The lack thereof caused lower profit at Empire due to its inability to collect late fee.
– Don’t over-spend on technology either, until you have a solid business plan.
– Always consider the profit the first bottom line. The 2nd bottom could be other aspiration like green but firs thing first. Without profit, the business cannot sustain.
– Good balance between life and work is important. Try out start up company first before starting up a business.
– Don’t be revolutionary and over-creative about a new business idea like “Elephant.” New ideas are good. Just need to know which ones are good. Something too new would take up too much time to start and the cash would run out.
– On decision making, let the ones with the best “resume” or expertise make the decision. Empower the right person to make the decisions.
– On hiring, have more than three people interview the candidate once and two people interview twice.
– The reason for Pharmacy to have a large section of the greeting card is to sell more gifts and other things along.
– The biggest profit center for pharmacies are the prescription, which occurs once a month and takes a long time change people’s existing behavior of buying from another.
– Have good mentors who have experience in the areas to guide you along the way.
– Some people are cut out for corporate world where business is less chaotic and well defined. A start up is chaotic.
– Surprisingly, playing poker serves as a good lesson for business, according to the author. Lots of techniques are used in business. Being a professional poker player for a couple of years after Empire Video, the author held an upper hand in business.

There is a pattern that the smart ‘C’ students like the author tend to make it big in the “real” world, perhaps because they compensate their lack of academic achievement with a keen sense of how the “real” world work, coupled with high drive and help from others.

Although he isn’t exactly a multi-billionaire from his business, the author has made enough mistakes and learned enough lessons from his own experience to spare the readers from making them.