"Have him go meet with my buyer," I finally said one day.

"No, you're going to meet with him. You can take five minutes out of your day. He's very nice and creative and worth five minutes." So I relented.

Kent certainly was nice, but he also came to the meeting prepared with a deep understanding of my business and an interesting value proposition. At our meeting, almost the first thing out of his mouth was "If it's okay with you, I would like to introduce you to the top three senior editors of Newsweek. Would you be interested in that?" As someone who relied on getting the media to cover Deloitte's intellectual property, this was an important offer.

"Of course," I told him.

"By the way, we're having a conference in Palm Springs where some other CMOs are getting together with our editors and reporters. It's going to be a really good conference about media strategies in the New Economy. Can I put you on the guest list?" He was offering a real business value, as many of the other CMOs would also be Deloitte customers. It would be a personal networking opportunity among my peers.

"Yeah, I'd like to go to that."

"Also, I know your media guy has been evaluating a proposal we put in a few months ago. I'm not going to waste your time with the details. I just want you to know that it would be great if we could do business together sometime." That was it. That was Ken's five-minute sales pitch. It was 98 percent value-add for me, 2 percent sales pitch by him.

I called our media guy after Ken left my office. "Go to Newsweek," I told him. "Quote them a fair price relative to the other magazines we were considering, and give them our business in this segment. Make it work." And you know that when Ken went to another magazine, so did my business.

My point? Always respect the gatekeeper's power. Treat them with the dignity they deserve. If you do, doors will open for you to even the most powerful decision makers. What does it mean to treat them with dignity? Acknowledge their help. Thank them by phone, flowers, a note.

And yes, there are times, of course, where the situation calls for more than niceties and pleasant gifts. At times, you'll need to use street smarts to get a meeting.

Last summer, I met a former Disney executive on a flight to New York. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I was a fairly new transplant to Los Angeles and I was always looking to meet good, smart people. She suggested that I might like to get to know an up-and-coming executive by the name of Michael Johnson, the president of Walt Disney International.

There wasn't anything obvious that Johnson could do for my company or me at that point, but I felt he was someone I should meet. I was running a computer games company, and who could say whether Disney might someday be interested in the video games space. The only problem was getting through Johnson's gatekeeper; at a huge company like Disney, that's often a big problem.

I called Michael Johnson when I got home from my travels and, unsurprisingly, got a neutral to cold reception.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson is traveling, and he'll be gone all month," his administrative assistant told me.

"That's okay," I replied. "Why don't you tell him a friend of Jane Pemberton's called. Please tell him to call me back when he gets a chance."

With a first call you don't want to come off as aggressive. Remember, you never, ever want to anger the gatekeeper.

My second call was more of the same: establishing my presence and making it known I wouldn't go away.

"Hi, this is Keith Ferrazzi. I'm just calling back because I haven't heard from Michael." Here, again, without being too pushy, you begin to create the presumption that his return call is imminent and expected. Johnson's gatekeeper politely took down my message and thanked me for calling. I asked for his e-mail address, but she wouldn't give it to me, stating privacy concerns.

On the third attempt, she was less polite. "Listen," she told me with a little edge in her voice, "Mr. Johnson is very busy and I don't know who you are." Now, I could either match her tone and this would spiral downward, or . . .

"Oh, I'm really sorry, I'm a personal friend of a friend of his. I just moved into the city, and Jane suggested that I should meet Michael, and honestly, I don't even know why besides the fact that Jane is a good friend of Michael's. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's all wrong. Maybe Michael doesn't know Jane well and he wouldn't want to meet me. I apologize if this is the case."

By being so candid and even vulnerable, I put the assistant on alert. She now fears that perhaps she's been too gruff, perhaps inappropriate, to a friend of a friend of her boss. After all, I'm just a guy following a friend's advice. Most likely she'll back off, worried that she's closed the gate too tight. Then I made a suggestion: "Why don't I just send Michael an e-mail?" And at this point, she's thinking, "I want to be out of the middle of this thing." So, finally, I got his e-mail address.

The e-mail I sent was simple: "Dear Michael, I'm a friend of Jane's, and she suggested I talk with you . . . Jane thinks we should know each other." If I had had something specific to discuss, I would have put it right up front, but the best value proposition I had was the mutual friend who felt this would be a win-win.

It's sometimes effective to utilize several forms of communication when trying to reach an important new contact. An e-mail, letter, fax, or postcard often has a better chance of landing directly in the hands of the person you're trying to reach.

Johnson's reply was cordial and short. "When convenient, I'd be happy to meet."

So I went back to his assistant with the information that Michael said he'd be happy to meet and that I was now calling to find out when. And finally, we did in fact meet.

Situations that call for this amount of maneuvering are, unfortunately, not rare. It's real work and it takes a finesse that only practice, practice, practice can master. But once you recognize the importance of gatekeepers, and turn them into allies with respect, humor, and compassion, there will be few gates that aren't open to you.

The dynamics of a network are similar to those of a would-be celebrity in Hollywood: Invisibility is a fate far worse than failure. It means that you should always be reaching out to others, over breakfast, lunch, whatever. It means that if one meeting happens to go sour, you have six other engagements lined up just like it the rest of the week.

In building a network, remember: Above all, never, ever disappear.

Keep your social and conference and event calendar full. As an up-and-comer, you must work hard to remain visible and active among your ever-budding network of friends and contacts.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. A few years back, I got the opportunity to travel with then First Lady Hillary Clinton on a C130 troop carrier, crisscrossing the Southwest from one political event to another. She was up at 5 in the morning for breakfast and phone calls back to the East Coast. She gave at least four or five speeches, attended a few cocktail parties where she constantly reached out to scores of individuals, and visited several people's homes. She must have touched 2,000 hands that day alone. At the end of the night, when most of our entourage struggled to get back on Air Force One, she huddled her staff, sat up cross-legged, and began to joke and chitchat with them about all that happened that day. An hour or so of frivolity, and Mrs. Clinton moved on to scheduling the next day. No matter what your politics, you have to respect that kind of determination and sheer work ethic. I was shocked by the number of individuals she remembered by name along the trip. I was having a tough enough time with remembering everyone's name in our group.