The Value of your Network

I just tweeted out: "You'll get more out of your network if you treat everyone like @mcuban or @BillGates vs. kissing butt and trying to succeed that way." This is something I truly believe in, it's why I take my time out to help as many people as I can. In some cases if it even makes sense for me I spend money on people trying to solve their problems.

Skyreal is a recruitment company so I figured i'd test this in the insurance industry. I found a connection at State Farm and did free recruiting with him even letting him know the costs it took me. Just imagine how happy he was that I spent a few hundred bucks trying to solve his business problem.

Of course I'm no mother Teresa, if I solved his problem and he paid me I could then charge him monthly, get referrals plus learn more about the insurance industry from a long time player. So what happened? Well I am now looking at other services in the insurance industry PLUS, I got a killer insurance deal today. :-)

Oh wait Vlad! you might say, that guy owned his own insurance company, of course you should help him! Well okay, let me give you an example that most people would brush off and it was before my insurance connection.

I once met man who freelance landscaping for 5 years, whom I was pretentious enough to not pay attention to. He gave me his business card and I simply got rid of it. I knew the guy for a few years and he was kind, honest, approachable, yet I didn't see the point of having him as a business connection or saving his contact information and keeping up at all.

Long story short, I got rid of his contact information. A friend of mine approached me about an "Uber for Landscaping" startup idea, which was gaining traction that I found interesting. Guess whose expertise I wanted to seek out then? I felt horrible and it's always hard getting an honest opinion of someone you don't know.

There are tons of other times I can mention, in fact Skyreal started because I met a friend of a friend who happened to own a real estate brokerage and had a pain point that I could solve! Long story short for brevity: "You'll get more out of your network if you treat everyone like Mark Cuban or Bill Gates vs. kissing butt and trying to succeed that way."