#20: Building a Network Out of Nothing

We need our guys to have their own networks, rooted in their local communities — the single guys need girls to date, the married guys’ wives and kids need friends, and when the balloon goes up, we all need a crew we can trust within a 15-minute radius.

An online network can jumpstart a local network (more on that later), but it’s not a substitute — so we spent our Tuesday night group call discussing how to build IRL networks that can make us more powerful locally, and more valuable to each other.

You may feel like you don’t have the necessary expertise or connections to build a personal network — but speaking as a guy with few marketable skills and no prior experience, it turns out that you can basically build a network out of nothing. Here’s how it seems to work:

Give yourself a reason to talk to people.

When people think of “networking”, they’re mostly imagining some kind of artificial, awkward, speed-dating type of conversation — networking for the sake of networking — but the best way to build a network is to start a project that’s too big for you.

One of our guys is interested in building an indoor soccer stadium; another is looking into wearable electronics; another wants to start a film festival. None of these projects are in their professional wheelhouse — but the fact is, nobody knows everything they need to know to build an indoor soccer stadium. Even the pros make a lot of phone calls.

Make a list of the unanswered questions that your project creates, and then make a list of the experts who could answer them.

The nature of your project will determine the flavor of your network.

It doesn’t have to be a business; in fact, you can start with the type of people you’d like to get to know, and then figure out what kind of project would give you an excuse to talk to them. Buying a cow gave me an excuse to meet farmers, ranchers, butchers, auctioneers, veterinarians, and the folks who run the feed store — all good people to know as the price of beef went through the roof.

Half a dozen baby chicks will give you all the excuse you need to build a prepper network. You can learn chicken husbandry from a book or a YouTube channel — but if you build a network to learn chicken husbandry, pretty soon you’ll know where to find raw milk, and which doctors are good on the vaccines, and how to butcher a hog, and what local law enforcement thinks of the Second Amendment.

In the same way, many of the people you need to know to build one business are the same kinds of people you’d need to know to start any business — accountants, marketers, web designers, suppliers, lawyers, other successful entrepreneurs, etc. That’s why you find so many serial entrepreneurs who never seem to go broke despite many “failed” businesses: as long as you fail well, the network you built stays intact, and forms the seed of the next venture.

But how do you strike up a conversation with these experts if you’re going in completely cold?

Make yourself useful.

The simplest way to be useful is to spend money — customers (or prospective customers) are always welcome. Start with the superconnectors: the guy who runs the feed store knows all the farmers in town, and he won’t mind if you linger at the register and ask questions. CPAs and attorneys know a lot about local business, because everybody needs them, and it’s their job to be in everybody’s business. Make an investment in the local PTA Power Mom’s essential oils grift.

Don’t monopolize their time or try to worm your way into an unpaid consult; just solicit their thoughts on your project in broad strokes, and then spend some time getting to know their interests and aspirations. People generally enjoy geeking out about their thing and talking about their dreams.

If you can be helpful, great — and it will become easier to be helpful as your network expands — but most people will be disposed to like you just for being interested. And don’t forget to ask if they know anyone you should talk to: they probably won’t have answers to all your questions, but they’ll often know the guy who does.

Build a network database.

Create a spreadsheet with one row for everyone you know, with the following information:

• Name

• Contact Information

• What they want (goals, dreams, skill gaps)

• What they have (capital, connections, expertise)

• Date of last contact

You can create a spreadsheet with specialized contacts for this one project, but you should also take stock of your entire network. Start from memory, because the people at the top of your mind are likely to be the most natural contacts: which of the people closest to you are successful, well-connected, or have valuable skills?

Look beyond professional value: who is just intrinsically interesting, fun at parties (especially “unrewarded geniuses”)? Who would you look to in a crisis: a family emergency, a natural disaster, an ethical/spiritual quandary?

Just by putting together the list and taking stock of all these resources and needs, you’ll almost certainly think of at least two people who would benefit from talking to each other. Then, start making connections — cc them on an email, schedule a three-way call, invite them to lunch.

A large, detailed book of contacts can make you useful to your friends — even if you, yourself, are not particularly useful.

As your network grows, it will become easier and easier to reciprocate the help that people give you. When they have a problem, you’ll be aware of other people who had a similar problem, and how they solved it. You’ll start to see patterns emerge across your network, and diagnose problems that aren’t obvious at the ground level. You’ll know who’s hiring, and who needs work — who wants to learn Python, and who likes to teach Python.

You could, of course, accelerate this process if you had access to an online network of 160 like-minded entrepreneurs, developers, marketers, engineers, salesmen, tradesmen, recruiters, accountants, lawyers, writers, filmmakers, etc. Then, when you spotted a need in your personal network, you could bring it to that online network and get expert advice — suddenly you’re the guy in your circle who knows an unaccountably large number of smart guys, and your networking starts to earn compound interest.

If you want to learn more about the caliber of people you’ll meet at EXIT, check out the EXIT podcast, or get in touch with us at exitgroup.us.