How to strengthen your personal network

September 4th, 2007 by Sandra Lenz
Posted in Social Networks | 2 Comments »

For being successful in your business life an excellent network makes things easier. As we already pointed out in “Identifying customers with social networking” knowing people is only a competitive advantage when people like you and trust your competence. Hand in hand with this goes that creating long-term relationships is very important as you can generate the best results for your business with them. Good reputation and trust are two reasons for this (see “How to get customer loyality through social networking“).
Rajesh Setty picks up this topic in his really interesting manifesto “Making the most of your time” on “Change this” as well as on his blog. Although the title might be a bit misleading as you would expect mainly notes about time management in general. Whereas you can find some very good thoughts about how to establish long-lasting, valuable contacts as well.

His answer of how to get people to like you and establish long-term contacts is pretty old: “Give first and then you get”. Or as others call

it more scientifically “the law of reciprocity”.

Here are some points to establish long-term relationship pointed out in the article:

  • Create more opportunities for them as compared to the request you make
  • Help people identify their strengths
  • Introduce people in your network that are opportunities for each other

Especially the last point (introducing people with each other that are not yet personally connected) provides your contacts real value.
As doing this usually does not require much effort on your side, it is a highly effective practice. Whenever you talk to someone ask yourself “is there somebody in my network where it is beneficial for both of them to get to know each other”?

It’s simple. And it’s very effective.

2 Responses to “How to strengthen your personal network”


  1. The Dog Says:
    October 23rd, 2007 at 12:08 pm

    Fine in theory…however, considering the naked selfishness of many people to retain the benefits of a profitable networking partner all for themselves, introductions to those people are rarely forthcoming.

    What you outline results in a kind of Pyramid scheme with the well-connected always being at the top, while the rest of the people in the network are always fighting to scramble upward.

    Multi-level networking is as effective as any Ponzi scheme. It benefits only the few who have the clout.

  2. Klaus Wiedemann Says:
    October 24th, 2007 at 7:10 pm

    I disagree. Someone could perhaps in the short run benefit from networking partners without giving back benefits. In the long run, this is not working:
    As every person is part of his personal network, chances are that someone would ruin his reputation (at least in the long run) when he tries only to benefit and not to give back, as this news is spreading.

    Usually, networks exist mainly among peers (people on the same or similar social level), where people have mutual benefits by networking.
    This is true also at the top of our society. Hover, this does not effect the value of personal networks: Comparing with others on a similar social level, someone with a good and reliable personal network has better chances to “scamble upward”, as you put it.

    Networking as we defined it in our article is far away for any multi-level marketing approach, as we see the focus on the long-term mutual benefit as absolute necessity for successful networking.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.