Did you know that your acquaintances are just as important as your good friends when it comes to building a successful network?
Whether you’re looking for a new job or some good advice, a recent study showed that people were 58% more likely to get a new job through acquaintances than close friends & family.
Say what?
Close family and friends tend to have the same information as you do
Close family and friends tend to have the same information as you do
Despite their good intentions, strong ties tend to give us redundant knowledge. Our closest contacts tend to know the same people and information as we do. Weak ties travel in different circles and learn different things, so they can offer us more efficient access to novel information. Most of us miss out on this novel information, filling our networks with people whose perspectives are too similar to our own.
“Dormant ties” are your network’s hidden gems
I read an interview between Ivanka Trump and Adam Rifkin, who was named Fortune’s best networker in 2011. He told her that, years ago, when he moved to Silicon Valley in the hopes of starting his first tech company, he was seriously lacking contacts there, and he needed guidance. He remembered that five years earlier, he had exchanged a few emails with a guy in the Bay Area named Graham Spencer. Rifkin reached out to reconnect, and when they met up for coffee, Spencer offered to connect him with some venture capitalists. One of those venture capitalists funded Rifkin’s startup for $50 million. When they first corresponded, Spencer was just a college student studying computer science. By the time they reconnected five years later, Spencer was the cofounder of a company called Excite, which he had just sold for $6.7 billion. During the time that they lost touch, he had met some extraordinary people, but several years had to pass first.
Pay it forward
It’s easiest to reconnect with dormant ties if you’ve been generous in the past. If you have a history of self-serving behavior, your old contacts are likely to lock the door to their networks and throw away the key. If you’ve given to them without strings attached, on the other hand, they’ll greet you with open arms.
Make it a habit
After learning about these ideas, I added a repeating reminder to my calendar: reconnect with at least one dormant tie each month. With social media, it’s easier than ever to track them down and get back in touch. Instead of asking them for help, I’ve been searching for ways to help them—sometimes by sharing knowledge, in other cases, by making introductions.
Go forth and network!
Go forth and network!
Xoxo,
Mel
Some information acquired from IvankaTrump.com
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