How To Find People To Network With
The cool thing about connections is that it is a very small world. A lot of people know a lot of people and people who you would never expect to know people, know people. This is why it’s smart to network and make friends anywhere you go. I’ve met very well-connected people at Starbucks and at bars. Those connections were just as powerful as connections I have made at professional networking events. As a result, I believe you should always be meeting people, shaking their hands and getting their contact information. You never know where it will lead down the road. With that in mind I want you to learn how to strike up conversations with everyone, anywhere, anytime. Say, “hi,” to people, learn to compliment people and learn how to make friends anywhere you go! That’s what I do! Ask anyone who knows me! Then ask them how I met them ????
One important thing I do is to connect with as many people as possible in every situation. Get everyone’s contact info, not just a few people. You may think that you are spreading yourself too thin and not really ‘building a relationship’ but remember that we filter everything later, so don’t worry. I figure if I am using a machine gun to hit my target, I have a much better chance by spraying 30 shots (getting 30 connections) than shooting a well-aimed five.
Sure, you are building a connection with those five people just a bit more but how do you even know if they are who you need to be networking with? If I get 30 contacts in one place, I can then go home and assess who everyone is and then build a relationship through social media by focusing my time on the people who are more valuable to me. Later in this course, we discuss how to filter useful people and not so useful to you people. We don’t ‘discard’ anyone because having a relationship with everyone is a good idea.
Everyone is important in their own right. We just want to make sure you are spending your time focusing on the right people. The ‘less useful people’ get put into a different category when we start cataloging them. If I only met five people, I am six times less likely to have spoken to someone who may be just who I need. Plus, now 30 people have met me instead of five. In certain circumstances, you may hit the jackpot and suddenly be talking to just who you need to be talking to. That one person could be the only person you even need to talk to that night. If you realize that, try your best to make sure that person can find value in you somehow. Even if that value is simply that you are nice, and you seemed to love listening to them talk about themselves. Remember the saying:
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
Stuff like this is why I really need you to read those books. It will help you learn to make people love you and want to connect with you. Learning the things in those books will make all of your relationships in life better. Your family, your friends, your lovers and more. Trust me.
Further on in the course, we also talk about building networks through the ‘Instagram Jumping’ method. Keep reading.