How many opportunities are you missing?

I received the message below in response to a connection request on LinkedIn:

Hello Rick – I’ve always been torn about whether or not to link with someone I don’t know. It seems to defeat the purpose – to refer or introduce you to others in my network. Just yesterday I called a friend to ask about someone in her network and she said she didn’t know the person. That makes the connection useless, don’t you think?

I believe this person’s perspective is quite common. She found my response useful and so may you. Would love to hear your comments.

Jim (not his real name),

I fully understand your feelings. When I first started using LinkedIn and other Social Networking sites, my approach was to only accept invitations from people I knew personally. I wasn’t going to be one of those people who have hundreds or thousands of meaningless connections.

I then started realizing that with this approach, my networking was going to be extremely limited – and mostly useless. This is because I would be networking with people I was already networking with. Not a lot of growth potential there.

Back then, I also started doing some article writing. Whenever people commented on my articles, I would write them an email thanking them. This led me to having conversations with many of these folks. And before long I started adding those people to my network.

Social Networking is all about relationships. However, the value of our network is based on both the QUALITY (depth) and the QUANTITY (reach) of our relationships. It is not an “either/or” but rather a “both/and” proposition.

While you and I don’t know each other, we do share several things in common. We are connected to some individuals we both know, we are both in BNI, we participate on LinkedIn and we belong to some of the same LinkedIn groups. That’s a good start to our relationship.

Now we’re having a conversation (albeit by email.) Who knows where this will lead? However, if you fail to accept my invitation, it will certainly lead nowhere.

Does that mean I personally know every person my network? No, it doesn’t. However everyone in my network has the potential to contribute something to someone else in my network. Take you for example, you have knowledge in Reverse Mortgages, something about which I know very little. If someone in my network were to ask me for a question or recommendation in this area, I wouldn’t hesitate to tap into your expertise. I might contact you asking you for information or I may offer your name to my contact and have them contact you directly, etc.

Bottom line, Social Networking is about a mindset. If you are connecting with people for the exclusive purpose of “what can I get?” then numbers are quite useless. However, if your purpose for growing your network is so that you can offer more opportunities to “give” then numbers do matter.