How to Network With Busy People ? Part 4 (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

How to Network With Busy People ? Part 4

[Beuford]

Made me think about how at school they often hand out business cards and such on assembly for irrelevant things. I just discard them.

[Trezker]

Yay! Finally getting to the do's, are you all done with the don'ts now?

I thought it'd come to this, the friend network. The reach the busiest people, you first have to build relationships with people who are easier for you to reach. Then they will connect you to people closer to the target. Eventually you reach the goal through a chain of friends.

[tonrou]

Steve,

No cold-calling, I understand the disadvantages of this, however you offer no other methods for people starting a business, if you don't know anyone, just starting, without anything to show other then experience in the field and a drive to start your own show.

Any tips, whats the best approach for meeting the right type of people -- in my case business owners -- without in some way introducing yourself to them in one form or another, via phone or in person.

I would like to get started, and encourage word of mouth leads and try to build a large network that I can use, however, at this point, I'm no where.

[Nex]

I wonder if there will then be a guide about how to stop being exploited by these tricks once you are a busy person?

For example, can I buy a sign or something that stops acquaintances from introducing me people?

[NickReitz]

Cold calling really doesn't work... I've been working as a telemarketer for two months and make 150+ calls every week. I haven't really had a good lead yet. People automatically tune out cold callers.

[Armen]

Treating the person on the other end like a unit with a response probability gets them to respond like a unit with a response probability, with no further elaboration. Cold-calling and expecting value to be provided on the other end represents expectation of getting more than is given, which doesn't occur.

[Trezker]

Originally Posted by tonrou

Steve,

No cold-calling, I understand the disadvantages of this, however you offer no other methods for people starting a business, if you don't know anyone, just starting, without anything to show other then experience in the field and a drive to start your own show.

Any tips, whats the best approach for meeting the right type of people -- in my case business owners -- without in some way introducing yourself to them in one form or another, via phone or in person.

I would like to get started, and encourage word of mouth leads and try to build a large network that I can use, however, at this point, I'm no where.

He has written about this issue earlier, though the question may not have been phrased in the same way. It's a story from his time as a game developer. He went it alone in the beginning, but after some time he joined a club or something for business people. They had gettogethers where everyone learned from eachother and this is awesome for a newbie.

So join a group of business people in your neighbourhood and just be social with them. You can learn a lot from them. Even if their businesses are all different, you have a lot to learn that is common to all sorts of business.