You can’t create a movement on your own. If your idea is going to spread, you need to build a following around it. The good news is that you probably already know people who believe in you and your vision. Most likely you have friends and family who could be enormously useful in getting the word out, connecting you with the right people, or leveraging their social networks on behalf of your idea. These existing networks are an important starting point because it’s the people who know us who are usually the most willing to help.
You can make a list of the obvious candidates—people you see often, or with whom you have a particularly close connection. It’s worthwhile to start talking with them about your idea to get feedback and get them on board. Then, take the time to look through your address book or database to remind yourself about more distant colleagues who may also be able to lend a useful perspective or connect you with resources. A quick e-mail or a coffee date can be an invaluable starting point as you begin to think about how to spread your idea.
Whether your existing network is large or small, it is important that you nurture it and take action to expand it. In this chapter, we’ll talk about a variety of ways to cultivate the connections in your life, from creating a professional development group to networking through interviews to leveraging your alumni affiliations and connecting through charitable causes. Find the strategy that feels right to you and take action, because—though networking sometimes gets a bad rap for being a sleazy, one-sided attempt to extract value—when done right, it benefits everyone. Of course you’d like help spreading your idea, and if they believe it’s a good one, they’ll want to assist. But when you also focus on how you can help them achieve their goals, you become not just a “networker,” but a trusted friend and valuable colleague.
CREATING YOUR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT GROUP
Becoming a recognized expert in your field is a challenge, but it’s much easier with the support of a strong peer network. A group of trusted colleagues can help you refine your ideas, provide honest feedback, and share insights and leads. They’ll also provide you with a dose of inspiration—you can see their successes and learn from them—and support when you face discouragement or setbacks. Most of us have some helpful professional contacts, but they’re not necessarily an active community focused on helping one another. Very few people luck into their own personal Bloomsbury or Harlem Renaissance; instead, you’ll likely need to take action to create such a network. That’s what Kare Anderson did on two separate occasions.
She started her career as a journalist, working for The Wall Street Journal and NBC News. Seeking to enhance her skills, in 1988 she formed a professional development group made up of six other reporters. They’d trade advice on how to cover breaking news, and who the best sources were. “I had more, better quotes that contributed to a better story, and that was huge,” she recalls. “And it felt really wonderful to do that back for them, that feeling of reciprocity.” She’s no longer a journalist—given the decline of the industry, half the group has actually left the profession—but they’ve continued to meet every single month for more than twenty-five years, offering advice and referrals. “When you’re meeting monthly and you continue to do so, you know so much, you talk in shorthand,” she says. “Together, we can bounce ideas more clearly off each other because we know each other so well and give candid feedback.”
Today, Anderson makes her living as a professional speaker, so in 1994 she started a monthly speakers’ group as well. To be as efficient as possible, each meeting has a specific structure. The participants convene on Skype and speak in the same order each month; each member offers up a need (something others can help them with) and a resource (help they can offer to others). Their colleagues then respond if there’s a match (you need a Web site designer and I know a great one). That’s a typical meeting. When crisis hits, personal or professional, the group comes together. When one member was up for a big job, the group focused like a laser, just as they did when another member’s daughter died.
The group has certain rules that members adhere to. It’s confidential; there are no referral fees; and when you make a commitment, you’re expected to keep it. Members keep notes on their colleagues’ needs and resources, and will often bring them up months later if a new opportunity has arisen. “You ask yourself, ‘Am I giving as much as the others are?’” she says. “It sets a standard.” It’s not a quid pro quo, but there’s an expectation that members will contribute.
Anderson has found a variety of professional benefits. She’s gotten new speaking gigs on the strength of referrals from group members, and they trade technology tips about products and services that might prove useful in their business. Mostly, she says, the benefit has been developing such deep and intimate professional relationships over the past quarter century. “You look back on notes you’ve taken, and it’s a way of realizing how much we’ve evolved,” she says. “There’s a record of witnessing each other’s lives in mutually beneficial ways. It’s made me a better person because of the mutuality at the center of it.”
Do you have enough people in your professional life who really know you? The bias in most discussions about networking is toward meeting more people, going to more cocktail parties, and trading more business cards. But sometimes depth can be as important, if not more so, as breadth. In a fast-moving world, it’s a powerful touchstone to have people in your life who have known you for years and watched you grow and progress. Sometimes we learn the most about ourselves through the eyes of others we respect and trust. Could you develop a deep professional community like Anderson’s? It may be essential to the success of your idea.
ASK YOURSELF:
GROWING YOUR NETWORK THROUGH INTERVIEWS
Kare Anderson brought together a core group of colleagues to support one another professionally. That’s an important first step in sharing your idea with the world. But in order to gain traction for our ideas, most of us need to think strategically about how we can also connect with influential people we don’t already know. After all, unless you’re Sheryl Sandberg looking to launch Lean In (with massive wealth and robust connections in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.), you probably need further help in getting the word out. You may need to connect with top business leaders, or journalists, or venture capitalists, or the advocacy community. Any prominent person is going to be busy and overwhelmed with requests, however. You need to be crystal clear in identifying whom you’d like to meet, understanding your value proposition (i.e., why they should make time to meet you) and communicating that effectively, and then building genuine connections with them. That’s what Bay Area attorney John Corcoran did through his blog and podcast, Smart Business Revolution, in which he interviews thought leaders he admires.
It’s a major investment of time, but Corcoran sees several professional advantages in creating his podcast series. First, it’s providing helpful information to listeners he’d like to connect with, such as entrepreneurs who might be potential clients. When he meets one who mentions an issue they’re facing, he can usually talk about it intelligently, thanks to his interviews. “I’m not an expert in Facebook marketing or e-mail marketing or how to use LinkedIn for business, but because I’ve done those fifty interviews, it provides me with an opportunity to help people even before they’re a client of mine,” he says. And while he’s never gotten a client out of the blue because of his blog and podcast, he’s certain it’s led to repeat business because he’s staying top of mind.
Corcoran also benefits from the knowledge he gleans from interviews. “It’s professional development as marketing,” he says. “I’m learning and educating myself as a business owner, and yet for the hour I spend learning, I can then take that recording, package it up, and send it out to the world as a podcast that will exist for infinity for other people to benefit as well.”
Most important, “The value to doing podcasts is relationships,” says Corcoran. The interview gives him an excuse to connect with interesting guests and hopefully develop a longer-term connection with them. As one of his guests, I had a firsthand look at how effective this was at building relationships. I met John when he introduced himself to me at a conference. He had clearly done his homework—he knew I was a speaker and what I looked like, and was able to build rapport immediately by citing a political campaign we’d both worked for. He invited me to be on his podcast, and we struck up a friendship that’s led to our collaborating on several Forbes blog posts and my inviting him to be a guest speaker at a workshop I conducted. I’m also not the only new contact he built a relationship with.
The previous year, he had an audacious goal: connecting with best-selling author Daniel Pink. “I started doing things to get on his radar screen, so I could build a relationship with him,” Corcoran recalls. He signed up for Pink’s newsletter, read his blog and all his books, and connected over Twitter. “Eventually I got up the nerve to ask him to be on my podcast. He was guest number five, and I’d hardly had any big names prior to that.”
He asked at the right time—by design, because he knew authors are more likely to grant interview requests when they’re promoting their books. Pink, who had just launched To Sell Is Human, agreed to the chat. “If you do it over Skype, you can see each other, and it’s almost like you’re in a coffee shop, except you’re three thousand miles away,” Corcoran says. “It’s helpful [to the conversation] if there are visual cues. But I also want to build a relationship with them; I want them to see my face, even though Dan was in Washington, D.C., and I was in San Francisco.”
Pink himself is an occasional podcaster, and extols the practice as a hybrid of recreation, networking, and professional development. “I don’t play golf, so it’s basically my golf—almost a leisure pursuit of mine,” he told me. “It was something I was always meaning to do, a poor man’s radio show with people I’m interested in talking to. It’s totally fun. I can talk to them for forty minutes and share it with other people.” Pink has used his own podcast to connect and strengthen relationships with other successful authors such as David Allen, Tom Peters, and more.
Corcoran promoted his interview with Pink heavily on social media, and made sure to get a ticket to his upcoming San Francisco book tour event. The event turned out to be massive, with nearly five hundred people in attendance. But to Corcoran’s delight, when he got to the front of the book-signing line, Pink greeted him first: “Hi, John.” Says Corcoran, “It was just so cool that here is this author that I admired, whose book I was a big fan of, and because of the podcast and social media, I was able to build and nurture a relationship with him before I’d ever met him face-to-face.”
Corcoran’s strategy is great for connecting with well-known people, who are far more likely to agree to be interviewed (which means their ideas can spread), rather than accepting an invitation to have a stranger “pick their brain” for free for an hour. But where he truly excels is in the follow-up. Many people would conduct the interview and leave it at that; after six months or a year, the celebrity guest may dimly remember their name, but that’s about it. But, as Corcoran points out, the secret is turning that initial connection into a real relationship, as he did with another podcast guest, Internet entrepreneur Andrew Warner.
Corcoran researched him intensively prior to the interview, studying up on his background and reading everything Warner had written. When Corcoran learned Warner was soon moving to San Francisco, he jumped into overdrive: This was an area where he could add value. He provided Warner with restaurant recommendations, advice about neighborhoods and apartments, tips on upcoming events, and introductions to people in the city.
Corcoran even helped Warner’s wife, a consultant for socially conscious companies, make professional connections in the Bay Area. Eventually, the Warners invited Corcoran and his wife over for a double-date brunch, solidifying the relationship. “My relationship with Andrew started with the podcast interview,” says Corcoran. “I never would have had any excuse for having an hour of his time.” But today, they’re friends.
Corcoran follows up, whereas most people don’t. But most important, he doesn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to his networking. If he wants to build a relationship with someone, he makes an effort to understand them first. He asks, “What does this person need right now?” In the case of Pink, it was publicity for his new book, so a podcast interview was a welcome invitation, rather than an onerous obligation. And Warner, moving to a new city Corcoran knew well, needed help with the basics—where to eat, where to live, and how to get connected to the entrepreneurial community. High-level people are bombarded with messages and requests all day, so it may—even if you’re trying to do them a favor—come across as another burden if you don’t think it through carefully (do they really want to meet that person you’re suggesting?). But well-timed, thoughtful help is invaluable, and earns you a place at the table.
Canadian social media consultant Debbie Horovitch took a similar approach to making connections through her own interview series, conducted via Google+ Hangouts on Air. Like Corcoran, she offered business authors the opportunity for broader exposure. But she also realized the technology itself—which allows for live, multiperson webinars that can be recorded and uploaded to YouTube—was an inducement. She was an early adopter, and many of the guests she invited had never done a Hangout before and wanted to learn how it works. The connections she’s made have already been transformative for her business; one author has offered to connect her with his publishing house, and she’s been featured in a book by one of her Hangout guests, Mike Michalowicz.
If you want to make the most of your half hour (or however long you’re speaking with your guest), follow Corcoran’s and Horovitch’s lead: choose the timing of your invitation wisely. Many top leaders and authors are so busy, they turn down almost all interview requests until the exact moment when they have something they need to promote. (Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, reports that he gets a thousand e-mails a day, which he describes as “unreal” and “brutal.”1 It’s no different for most other well-known people.) Your request is far more likely to be accepted if it coincides with the release of a new book, TV show, product launch, or the like. Create a target list of people you’d like to connect with and start reading their blogs and following them on social media so you can learn about the projects they’re working on and determine when they’d be most receptive.
Next, prior to your interview, do as much research as possible. When Corcoran wanted to connect with Daniel Pink, he subscribed to his newsletter, read his blog, connected on Twitter, and read all of his books. That’s an investment of dozens of hours—but it paid off when Pink greeted him by name at the event, and, when I asked Pink about Corcoran months later, he remembered exactly who he was. Indeed, through his blog and podcast, Corcoran has steadily been building his own reputation as a thought leader. Now he’s often the guest on other popular podcasts—and he still does his homework. When I heard him interviewed recently on John Lee Dumas’s EntrepreneurOnFire show, during a segment in which Dumas asks all guests about their favorite productivity hack, Corcoran mentioned an Internet password tool and told Dumas, “I cannot believe this was not taken before . . . it wasn’t on your list . . . six hundred plus interviews and no one’s mentioned it!” Think about that for a moment, because it’s significant. Corcoran took the time to listen to enough of Dumas’s podcasts to know he was going to be asked the question about his favorite tool. And beyond that, he took the time to review the list of more than six hundred recommendations on Dumas’s Web site and identify one that no one had yet mentioned. Dumas was clearly delighted, mentioning that he used the tool every day as well. That’s the level of preparation that sets you apart, and ensures you’ll be noticed and remembered.
Finally, Corcoran’s point about the importance of keeping in touch is crucial. If you follow up, stay on their radar, and find ways to add value, you can turn an initial meeting into a lasting connection. Though we had mutual friends, the first time I spoke with Mike Michalowicz—who ended up featuring Debbie Horovitch in his book—was when I interviewed him for my Forbes blog.2 We kept in touch by e-mail, and several months later he had a speaking engagement in my city and invited me to breakfast. Several months after that, he invited me to join a professional speakers’ networking group he was starting, and we’ve subsequently vacationed together with the group. I met Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson briefly—for perhaps a minute—at a conference, and asked if I could interview her for my Forbes blog as well. That gave me the opportunity to meet her at her office, and she was impressed when I turned our one-hour chat into three separate blog posts.3 That kick-started a friendship, and we’ve now been to dinner at each other’s houses, and she blurbed my first book.
In the past two and a half years, as of this writing, I’ve created more than 250 blog posts for Forbes alone. The vast majority of those posts are interviews with authors and business leaders, and (as Corcoran and Horovitch also experienced) it’s given me the excuse to meet the people I’d like to connect with. Writing for a brand-name publication helps, but it’s not essential. Even if you’re writing for your own personal blog, the vast majority of people will agree to an interview; one podcaster friend told me that no interviewee had ever asked him how many listeners he had. Because your interview will go online and will be findable by search engines, it’s less and less relevant whether you’re backed by a major media brand. If you are, that’s nice; if you’re not, don’t let that stop you from trying this powerful form of relationship (and brand) building.
To successfully spread our ideas, most of us will need to cultivate new relationships in addition to our core group of trusted colleagues. Connecting with busy people is never easy, but if you make it a consistent part of your schedule and show others why it’s worth their while, you can build a substantial network faster than you might imagine.
ASK YOURSELF:
LEVERAGING YOUR AFFILIATIONS
Corcoran and Horovitch grew their networks through podcasting and Google+ Hangouts, but there are also “old-fashioned,” analog strategies that are surprisingly powerful. One of the best is leveraging your affiliations to connect with like-minded people, because your shared history or point of view allows you to build trust (and a solid relationship) quickly. One of the most popular Forbes posts I ever wrote was an interview with Robert Cialdini—yes, that’s how we first connected—called “How to Get Someone to Like You Immediately.”4 The secret? He says it’s to find a commonality—any commonality—fast. It could be something as simple as the fact that you live in the same neighborhood, or you both like running. One particularly powerful bond is having a shared alumni connection, something consultant Robbie Kellman Baxter learned firsthand.
She estimates that half her consulting business comes from fellow Stanford Graduate School of Business alums. That isn’t just good luck; she’s made Stanford the core of her volunteer efforts in the nearly twenty years since graduation. Baxter’s involvement with Stanford has two advantages. The first is branding. As one of the top business schools in the country, it’s incredibly selective—and the fact that she was accepted and graduated sends a strong message about her competence. As researchers Matthew Bidwell, Shinjae Won, Roxana Barbulescu, and Ethan Mollick revealed in their paper—fantastically named “I Used to Work at Goldman Sachs!: How Organizational Status Creates Rents in the Market for Human Capital”—it’s true that “working for a high status employer provides workers with a valuable signal of ability which helps them to secure better jobs in the future.”5 The same is almost certainly true of one’s association with a top-tier university.
Unless someone is reading your bio or your résumé, they wouldn’t necessarily know where you went to business school (or that you have an MBA at all). It would also seem awkward or overly self-promotional to mention one’s Stanford connection out of the blue. But Baxter’s alumni volunteer work gives her a great opportunity to talk with others, including potential clients, about the events she’s speaking at or organizing, leaving them with the impression: this is an accomplished professional.
Second, Baxter’s alumni work directly builds her network, giving her an easy opportunity to make connections with interesting new people. “It’s such a natural community, and we have this shared history,” she says. “The reason it’s good for your business is that you’re able to form genuine relationships with like-minded people very quickly, and to me, that’s the definition of good networking. There’s a kind of trust: I know what you went through because I went through it, too.”
Her Stanford volunteer work started in the smallest of ways, running the class notes column for the alumni magazine. Over time, she stepped up her involvement, helping to organize reunions and speaking to other alums who were also interested in becoming solo consultants. Soon, Baxter realized that while other alumni clubs (like Harvard’s) were active in the area, there wasn’t robust programming for Stanford alums in Silicon Valley, because of the assumption that alumni could access events on campus. She figured there ought to be some events tailored specifically to their needs.
That’s why she launched the Strategy Breakfast Series, “a quarterly breakfast that we would open up to all alums. We’d hold it on or near campus, and talk about some issue related to business strategy. For the first couple of years, I organized all of them.” She picked hot topics—like the future of mobile payments—that would be sure to attract the local start-up crowd. Her hard work also benefited her visibility. “I was meeting people, up in front of the podium, and my name was often being sent out to the entire alumni community, so it was great for building awareness and credibility.”
As a result of her service, she’s become a go-to speaker and volunteer—resulting in her being asked to join a prestigious advisory committee for the school, the Women’s Initiative Network. “It was a really great opportunity, and I don’t think I would have been invited if I hadn’t done so much work with Stanford already,” she says. Through her work on that committee, including helping to organize an annual conference, she’s built relationships with influential alumni.
The key ingredient in her volunteering and networking success, says Baxter, is her passion for the school. “There is the prestige of continuing to be associated with such a great institution as Stanford,” she says. “But for affiliation to be effective, you have to have a genuine desire to help that organization. It has to come from an authentic place. I’ve thought many times, ‘Would I still be doing the same things for Stanford even if I were suddenly phenomenally wealthy and no longer needed to have any clients?’ and I would.”
Baxter’s example is important for several reasons. First, she chose to get involved with a cause she really cared about. If you hated your college experience or are joining a group only because your boss is a member, your lack of interest will eventually show through. It takes energy to participate, and sometimes you’re called upon to do unpleasant things (get up at six A.M. for a charity run, or stay to clean up after an evening meeting). If you care about the cause, that sense of mission can get you through; if you’re neutral or tepid, it’s hard to justify the investment. You’ll be asking: is this how I really want to spend my free time?
Next, it’s important for the tasks themselves to feel enjoyable to you. The alumni association could probably use plenty of volunteers to chair fund-raising dinners or monitor the finances of local chapters, but that wouldn’t have been as rewarding to Baxter. Because she’s volunteering, she can choose the scope of her engagement and concentrate on the tasks that are enjoyable, like connecting with friends from her class (through reunions and the class notes column), networking with fellow alums (through the speaker series and one-on-one coffees), and sharing her professional expertise (through lectures and webinars).
Finally, she chose to “go deep” with one cause. If she’d dispersed her volunteer efforts, she probably would have met more people at first—going to different events and mingling with different crowds. By investing in Stanford, she came to be recognized as a leader and was tapped for high-visibility roles that ensured she wasn’t just meeting people one-on-one; people she’d never talked to now know exactly who she is.
Building on alumni connections is a great strategy, but not everyone went to a prestigious university, of course. Like Baxter, however, everyone can think about ways to get deeply involved with some kind of cause or organization, many of which don’t require specific credentials to join, but which create a strong sense of affiliation. Over the years, I’ve participated in a number of networking communities. When I lived outside Boston, I was a member of my local chamber of commerce and often attended their networking events; I also actively participated in an online message board for solo consultants and organized periodic meetups of group members from New England.
Similarly, you could join (or create) corporate alumni groups from current or past companies you’ve worked for, conferences or events that you attend, or demographic affiliations you share (black professionals, female attorneys, etc.). Finally, an often-overlooked networking opportunity is the civic and charitable groups you support, the topic we’ll turn to in the next section. The goal of all of these strategies is to give the other person a reason to see you as a colleague, not a stranger. You’re known by the company you keep, so make sure it represents you well—and that, since you’re involved, you’re maximizing the value of that affiliation to meet people with shared values.
ASK YOURSELF:
THE CAUSES YOU SUPPORT
If there’s a cause you care about, there may be ways you can integrate it into your professional life, benefiting your community and growing your network at the same time. Serving on charitable boards is a great opportunity for networking and skills development, but it’s even more powerful to ask: how can I integrate a commitment to service into everything I do? If you can figure out how to live out your values in every aspect of your business, the relationships you build as a result will be among the strongest and best you have, because they’re founded on a shared commitment to something larger than yourself.
I got to know the real estate agent Thalia Tringo when we served together on the board of East Somerville Main Streets, a civic improvement group outside Boston. But that wasn’t the only cause she supported. She’s an active board member of the Somerville Homeless Coalition, and donates $250 to charity for every real estate transaction she completes. “I’m not a religious person,” she says, “but I try to tithe a percentage of my income. That’s hard to do when you’re a Realtor [because of the variable income stream], so when I started, I decided I’d give a certain amount for every transaction, and that way I’ll know I’ll have done my giving.”
Like John Gibb Millspaugh, however, the real endgame for Tringo is inspiring others to take action. She recruited a client to the board of the Homeless Coalition, and inspired another to get involved with Community Cooks, a charity that mobilizes local volunteers to cook healthy meals to supplement the food that’s available at homeless shelters. “One client does it with her two daughters, and they know they’re doing it for another mother and her children,” she says. She’s mobilized residents on her street to help a neighbor threatened with homelessness while battling cancer, and actively promotes a sense of community by seeking out owner-occupant buyers who want to be engaged in local civic life.
Her reputation for civic-mindedness has become a core part of her brand, and her client base—including me—draws on many people she’s met through her volunteering. “Today, I had a closing with somebody I would never have met, except we serve on the board of the Homeless Coalition together,” she told me. Tringo’s charitable involvement “was never really a marketing strategy,” she says. “It’s a good marketing strategy, but that wasn’t the intent.” When you take action on the causes you care about and connect with people around them, you can create a powerful network and a professional reputation that precedes you.