A useful article on building your network. When your reps complain “but I don’t know anybody” what they’re saying has nothing to do with their network or this article.
The Network Is Everything
Chris Brogan | September 20, 2010 Entrepreneur.com
Understand Dunbar’s number
British anthropologist Robin Dunbar said you can maintain only 150 close social connections. This isn’t a software limitation–it’s a
number culled from research that says we humans have a hard time keeping everyone top of mind. With technology, we are able to stretch that number, but it requires consideration and tuning to maintain your 150 and to grow.
The 150 people you spend most of your time communicating with are: Relatives, Colleagues at the same company, Customers or prospects served by that company, Schoolmates from the good old days, Geographic connections
Be part of different 150s
My take is that you should consider diversifying by location and by industry, for starters. Find people from different industries and connect. A real estate professional could make friends with a realtor in another part of the country….or in the local art community, then help artists place paintings in each house sold. Get the picture?
You can start with all the different industries that service your house, your healthcare professionals, other parents whom your kids go to school with. Or you can use your wedding list, graduation list, Christmas card list…or you can use technology like Classmates.com, Facebook, LinkedIn.
Deliver useful contact often
The best advice I can give you is to be helpful. There are two ways that I do this, and maybe you have others. First, I share useful information when I find it. If I see an article about the restaurant business, I send it to Joe Sorge in Milwaukee, who runs AJ Bombers and three other restaurants. If I’ve got something to share with Government 2.0 types, I’ll tell Alex Howard, who covers the future of government for O’Reilly Media. The key here is SHARING useful and timely information.
The second way I help is by connecting people together for business. Every time you can tell someone in your network that you have someone they should meet–and that meeting amounts to business value and/or money–it’s a beautiful day for all. Be at the elbow of every deal.
Exercising our networks and connecting to important people are meant to be a part of our daily business rituals. It’s work, and it’s work that pays off.
Your NetWork precedes and predicts your Net Worth.