The book is a self-help book showing a step by step path to successful relationship networking for sales and marketing people. It is written in the form of a novel with all of the lessons built into the storyline.
The book abounds with trendy conversation and many strong personalities who create conflict and page turning tension.
The heroine is a young woman, Lee, who flees a disastrous marriage with her 5 year old daughter and only the clothes on her back.
Lee starts job hunting and decides to accept a sales job because the earning potential is greater than anything else she is qualified to do. Lee wants something with a future. Her skills were few and her experience next to nothing.
Lee starts a new job working for a promotional product marketing company. She meets people and learns all the products and how they personalize them for clients. She also is shown the way the company recommends for you to find new clients.
Armed with that knowledge, she is expected to go out and make business happen. Lee must learn the skills needed to build her earnings abilities so she can live independently and raise her daughter. Working as a salesperson gives her that chance. The company promises to teach her what she needed to know to earn more than she dreams possible.
She is determined to make her own way in the world. The new job was the first step. She had enough esteem issues as it is. Being a burden to others isn't going to be one of them.
Her new boss is pushing her to become productive and tells her she needs to network to build her business but doesn't tell her how. She spends time researching and finds that leads groups are a great way of getting started. She looks up several leads groups in the area. In her quest to learn how to network, she meets Gordon who takes her under his wing. He hosts a leads group called Relationship Builders. It's for networking professionals who are involved in business to business marketing. After talking to Gordon for a while, Lee decides this will be a good place for her to start.
Lee spends little time at her office but when she does, invariably she runs into Stan, the top salesperson at the company. She has learns you don't make money in the office. She also learns to avoid Stan who loves himself and has no time for anybody who does not. He is able to get away with it because he produces way more than anybody else in the shop.
Stan goes out of his way to make Lee feel unworthy. His snide remarks are strategically placed where the boss can't hear them. The other salespeople do. They have been on the receiving end of Stan too, He is an equal opportunity offender.
She starts going to the networking group meetings and begins to learn and apply the how and whys of relationship networking. Lee learns about the four Alpha Laws and building a sustainable referral network of people who will help her grow her business. She learns the purpose of practice and starts doing it faithfully. The more she goes, the more she learns, and the more people she meets and interacts with effectively.
Lee starts working with one of the experienced salespeople in the office, Jordon. Their joint effort proves fruitful. They have some differences of opinion on style. Lee, being the lesser experienced team member defers to her partner.
Her sales start increasing so much, it becomes noticeable to the boss, then to every other member of the sales team, including Stan. The boss starts holding Lee up as an example to the rest of the team. Her numbers improve and she even outpaces Stan after being there for about a year. She does her best to share what she is doing and how to do it, but nobody listens, least of all Stan. He does begrudgingly start treating Lee with a little respect.
Lee's partner, Jordan does not understand or believe in Lee's relationship building tenants. Friction between them grows.
She meets Kerry and helps her to overcome her slump by applying what she has learned. Kerry is a mortgage broker who Gordon brings into the Relationship Builders group. He asks Lee to help her get acquainted. Kerry finds out she's not the only mortgage broker there and tells Lee she doesn't think this is for her. She tells Lee she is more used to a leads group where there was only one mortgage broker allowed per chapter. Lee assures her this is more than just a leads group and convinces Kerry that learning about building relationships is much better than chasing leads.
She and Kerry become close. She helps Kerry to grow and become more productive using the lessons about relationship building.
Lee ends up being the top producer in her office the next month. Stan is gracious. Jordan is not.
Lee forges a new relationship with Stan and introduces him to Relationship Builders.
Although Lee doesn't always live happily ever after, her life improves enough to start realizing many of her dreams. She learns the value of giving back. Lee has become a successful networking maniac.