3 Step Process To Find the Most Important People To Network With

Whether we’re building a network to increase sales, connect with like-minded entrepreneurs, or find a new job, all of us need to develop a networking in a way that has a positive impact on our success.

Some people think networking is only about talking with the people closest to you.

They are wrong.

You’re smart. You know better…

You know a handful of people that you should be connecting with, but there are many more people you need to network with.

At the end of these simple 3 steps, you’ll have the names of people you need to start connecting with, where they hang out online, and what they do.

Take out a piece of paper and a pen, or open up your writing program of choice and get ready to write your list.

FIGURE OUT WHAT TYPE OF PEOPLE YOU SHOULD CONNECT WITH

The people you should be networking with are the people who can have the biggest positive impact on your success.
A list of potential people to connect with are:

Prospects

Current Clients

Past Clients

Current Boss

Bosses Boss

People who have gone through what you’re currently, or about to go through.

Potential Mentors

A potential new boss

People with a similar skillset at different companies

People with a complimentary skill set as you (e.g. Web Designer and Web Programmer)

People who call on the same clients as you, but do something different (SEO consultant and Marketer)

People in the same broad field as you (Web Designer and Painter)

People with similar interests and hobbies as you

Interesting people

Influential individuals with large followings online

Thought leaders in your profession

Up-and-coming superstar that you can help out

If I was in B2B sales, here’s a sample list I would put together:
Prospects

Current clients

Past clients

Other sales professionals

Sales bloggers/podcasters

People who’s been where I’m at in my sales career and can teach me

People who are just starting out that I can help out

People who call on the same clients that I do, that might be able to refer me or I can refer them into larger projects

Sales thought leaders who hold events, conferences, or have influence on my potential client

Vendors or Suppliers for my products.
ACTION STEP

Take 5 minutes to write down your list of types of people that you should be connecting with.

FIND OUT WHERE THOSE TYPES OF PEOPLE HANG OUT ONLINE

One of the best ways to find out where people hangout online is using Google.
Search using this guideline: **industry + type of person + community word**

A handful of different communities and places to include in your searches are:

Twitter (List)
Facebook (Group)
LinkedIn (Group)
Forum
Blog
Podcast
Conference
Summit
Mailing List
Community
Meetup
Pinterest
Sales
Social Media
Training
Awards

Here are some examples of searches you can perform:

Marketing Manager Facebook Group
Online Content Marketer Forum
Construction Foreman Blog
Engineering Internship Blog
Web Designer LinkedIn Group – (sometimes you only need the title of the person)
Startup Marketing Twitter
Fashion Designer Pinterest
Insurance Underwriter Conference
Internet Entrepreneur Mastermind
Browse around the different groups when the search results come up.
Some websites won’t be worth spending your time on, but a few will be very valuable to you.
Go read and learn as much as you can to find out who the influencers in those communities are.

ACTION

Next to the types of people you already wrote out, write down different places that you find them online through your searches.

FIND SPECIFIC PEOPLE TO CONNECT WITH

Now, all you have to do is follow along the conversations where the types of people you want to connect with hangout at.

If it’s a forum, group, or community of more than one person, start paying attention to the active people. Who do people seem to pay attention to? Who’s giving out good information and is someone you want to network with?
Most likely, there will be a large number of twitter usernames, blog authors, podcasters, and other individuals on the list.

ACTION

Write down at least 20 names of the people to connect with.

Right now, the list seems like a lot of people, but once you’re keeping in touch with 100+ people in your network only 20 people seems easy.

BONUS TIPS

Here are some extra tips and tricks you can use to find out where people are and who they are online.

Rapportive – http://www.rapportive.com
If you have someone’s email address, you can use rapportive to find their social media profiles.

To do this, you need three things:
A gmail account
Rapportive
Someone’s email address
Linksy.me

In case you only have the person’s name and you don’t know their email address, you can save a lot of time and guessing using http://linksy.me/find-email to find potential variations of their email address.

Alltop – http://www.alltop.com

All you need to do is type in or select the industry of your choice and it will bring up a list of blogs and recent blog posts. You can click on the blog and then find the author.

Little Bird – http://www.getlittlebird.com
This is by far my favorite method of finding influencers online.

It is a paid service that searches the web for the people who influence the influencers.

You can find out who the emerging influencers are, who’s the most popular, who listening the most, and who’s the most active. You can export the data and automatically create things like twitter lists.

Written by Josh Sweeney