When I worked in a business newspaper, my job was to create and sell advertising. Most of my colleagues focused on that, and kept their social lives separate.

I was new to the city so I wanted to meet more people. To do that, I started joining organizations. Within a couple of years I had more than 1 political party membership, a few business association memberships and a social group membership. These all brought me into contact with a variety of people so my network of connections was growing.

The variety of groups really helped. Two results became obvious over time:

• Lots of understanding about the whole Metro Vancouver region and the many types of businesses, cultures and non-profit groups
• Strong sales because I had more connections than colleagues who simply relied on cold calling and other standard sales practices.

My success wasn’t the result of a plan. I’m just a curious person.

However, I did learn the valuable lesson of having a diverse network, and being someone who could connect people to others able to help them.

The Connector Benefits

One of the great parts of working to become a Connector is the adventure. You can’t predict the completely new social and business circles you will be exposed to.

Relationships

When a sales person is cold calling, or a business is contacting hundreds or thousands of “prospects”, they need to work through many. Very few will become a reasonable connection.

When you are seeking to grow your network, you will be in direct contact with only a few people at a time. And only a few of those leads to a relationship.

If you have looked someone in the eye, listened to what they have to say, and made them feel comfortable, you are starting a relationship.

What To Do When You Meet New People

• Learn the specialty or strength of the new contact
• Learn their needs
• Send them a resource
• Connect them to someone who can help or connect them to someone who can

Set targets for how many significant connections you want to create

• 10 – Just to get started, learn some simple processes
• 25 – Starting to get real traction
• 50 – Work with those for a while. Get comfortable by strengthening each of those. Track results, learn to feel what’s right for you and what’s right for your better connections
• Over 50 – now you have moved into the Super Connector status. You need to be making connections an important part of each day. It works well because you understand what to do and when to do it.

Key Principles

• Give a lot, generously. If you aren’t generous, go back to selling the old way
• Listen carefully
• Talk to strangers
• Manage your contacts
• Not everyone is equal. Spend more time on the “better few”. Those are people connected into groups you don’t have, who don’t sell but do seek many opportunities.

Contact Management for Relationship Building – set up a database with calendar

• Name, contact information, company, etc
• How you 1st met or got talking
• Their situation
• Their strengths and unique skills. Learn to use tags or keywords to track many.
• Their needs. Again tags or keywords can really help.
• Create a “scoring system” based on your estimation (potential value to your other contacts, their openness and generosity, new networks they have which might have value to you and your connections)
• Score & Sort to learn which contacts are a priority
• Next Contact Date
• Who to connect them to. Try to create mutually beneficial connections
• Notes & Correspondence

Results

As you help others, you will learn who needs what. New opportunities will be discovered and an above-average diversity in your network will lead to above-average new business deals.

Your reputation will be greatly strengthened as people recognize you as a go-to person when people need something.

Referrals come to those who give a lot. Your understanding of your community will grow much more.

This will take a few years, and that is how long-term relationships grow. Enjoy!