The most efficient way to enlarge and tap the full potential of your circle of friends is, quite simply, to connect your circle with someone else's. I don't think of a network of people as a "net," into which you wrangle contacts like a school of struggling cod. Again, it's like the Internet, an interconnecting series of links in which each link works collaboratively to strengthen and expand the overall community.
Such collaboration means seeing each person in your network as a partner. Like a business in which cofounders take responsibility for different parts of the company, networking partners help each other, and by extension their respective networks, by taking responsibility for that part of the web that is theirs and providing access to it as needed. In other words, they exchange networks. The boundaries of any network are fluid and constantly open.
Let me give you an example of what I mean from my own life. One Saturday afternoon, I went to join my friend Tad and his wife Caroline at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Tad introduced me to Lisa, the manager of the hotel, who cuts a striking pose: tall, blond, articulate, charming, funny, and casual all at the same time.
"If between the two of you there's someone in L.A. you don't know, I'll be very surprised," Tad told us. In his eyes, we were both master networkers. Lisa was, as many in the hospitality business are, a super-connector.
Within ten minutes of meeting each other, we knew we were going to be great friends. Lisa and I spoke the same language.
Lisa had heard about the dinner parties I regularly threw for business. Your guests should be staying at the Bel-Air during their L.A. jaunts, she told me. I, in turn, looked around the Bel-Air and thought how memorable it would be to hold some of my events in such swanky surroundings. Could Lisa and I form a social partnership?
So I made a simple suggestion.
"Lisa, let's share a few months of dinner parties. You hold a dinner party at the Bel-Air and give me half the invite list. Then I'll hold one of my dinner parties and give you half of the list. We'll split the tab for each event, saving each of us a bundle of money, and together we'll meet a lot of new, exciting people. By cohosting the events, we'll make them that much more successful."
Lisa agreed, and our dinner parties were a huge success. The unique mix of people from the worlds of business and entertainment was fun and interesting. Not only did we introduce our friends to an entirely new group of people, but the dynamic at the parties was exhilarating.
Politicians, the inveterate masters of networking, have exchanged their networks in this fashion for years. They have what are called "host committees," groups of people hailing from different social worlds who are loyal to a specific politician and charged with introducing their candidate to their respective circle of friends. A typical well-established politician will have a host committee of doctors, lawyers, insurance professionals, college kids, and so on. Each committee is made up of well-connected people in their respective worlds who organize parties and events granting the politician access to all their friends. To my mind, it offers a great template for people looking to expand their own network.
Are there worlds you want more access to? If so, see if you can find a central figure within that world to act as your own one-person host committee. In a business context, say you plan on selling a new product that your company is introducing several months down the line, and most of your customers will be lawyers. Go to your personal lawyer, tell him about the product, and ask him or her if they'd be willing to come to a dinner with a few of their lawyer friends that you'd like to host. Tell them that not only will they get an early look at this fabulous new product, but they'll have an opportunity to meet your friends, who could become potential clients. They'll become responsible for holding events that will usher you into their group of friends. You'll become responsible for doing the same for them. This is exactly what I am doing at FerrazziGreenlight Training & Development as we roll out our training course "Relationships for Revenue Growth" into the legal profession. This training and development has been successfully taught at consulting firms, financial services companies, and to software sales forces and many others. But who better to capitalize from relationship selling but lawyers?
This kind of partnering works wonderfully. But the underlying dynamic at work has to be mutual benefit. It should be a win-win for all involved.
If you are sharing someone else's circle of friends, be sure that you adequately acknowledge the person who ushered you into this new world, and do so in all the subsequent connections that they helped foster.
Never forget the person who brought you to the dance. I once mistakenly invited a brand-new friend to a party without inviting the person who introduced us. It was a terrible mistake, and an unfortunate lapse in judgment on my part. Trust is integral to an exchange of networks that demands treating the other person's contacts with the utmost respect.
As your community grows, partnering becomes more of a necessity. It becomes a matter of efficiency. One contact holds the key to maintaining all the other relationships in his or her network. He or she is the gatekeeper to a whole new world. You can meet dozens, even hundreds of other people through your relationship with one other key connector.
Two quick rules of thumb:
1. You and the person you are sharing contacts with must be equal partners that give as much as they get.
2. You must be able to trust your partners because, after all, you're vouching for them and their behavior with your network is a reflection on you.
A word of caution—never give any one person complete access to your entire list of contacts. This is not a free-for-all. You should be aware of who in your network is interested in being contacted and how. Exchanging contacts should take place around specific events, functions, or causes. Consider carefully how your partner wants to use your network and how you expect to use his. In this way, you'll be more helpful to the other person, which is the kind of genuine reciprocity that makes partnering, and the world, work.