Connections Are Everything for Your Consulting Firm. How to Make Connecting Easy.
Connecting with others may be the ultimate superpower.
Living a long, happy life, creating personal wealth, and building a rewarding consulting practice are all anchored in your connections with others.
Yet, most people’s connection skills are sorely lacking. On par with their ability to perform neurosurgery, speak ancient Akkadian, or distinguish between the Taylor Swift and Barbie Halloween costumes.
Sure, most folks maintain a few, deep relationships with their best friends, some of their family and the local baker.
However, your average Joe—including your average Jo Consultant—ignores the vast majority of their contacts.
They let 95-99% of their network languish as Lapsed Contacts until the relationship bonds are withered and fragile or entirely non-existent.
This is especially true of decision-makers in corporate jobs, who typically don’t feel any incentive to maintain contacts outside their company.
Similarly, most consultants’ careers start in large firms or organizations where there is no emphasis on building networks or learning strong connection skills and habits.
Of course, you probably know a few super-connectors who seem to know everyone and stay in touch with everyone.
You can train yourself to be one of those super-connectors.
It’s easy.
Ninety-five percent of your network is sitting there, untouched by you.
All you need to do is send those folks a message.
Messages lead to connections. Connections lead to conversations.
Conversations are where wealth is created in the form of relationships and, happily, opportunities for your consulting firm.
So, let’s focus making outreach messages easy and effective.
5 Ways to Make Connecting Easy
5-Minute Time Limit
Spend no more than five minutes sending your outreach message to any one contact.
If you labor over exactly what to say, outreach will feel too much like work, and that will make your new status as a super-connector difficult to maintain.
Five minutes per contact translates to 12 contacts in an hour, 156 connection attempts in a quarter and over 600 people over the course of a year if you establish a weekly habit.
Wow! Twelve outreaches in a week doesn’t make you a connector, but 600 in a year… now you’re talking! Literally.
That level of outreach should lead to at least a couple of conversations with Lapsed Contacts every week.
Set the Right Expectations
Understand from the outset that once you reach out, most people won’t reach back. Especially if you’ve fallen out of touch.
Don’t get discouraged. Stay positive and hopeful.
Reaching out is like smiling at someone on the street. Maybe they won’t smile back, but you’ve still put positive energy into the world, and that’s a good thing.
Send 1:1:1 Messages
I’ve found that 1:1:1 messages are easy once you get the hang of them. They’re also extraordinarily effective.
If you’re struggling to get the knack of 1:1:1 messages, create something even easier: a one-line message about yourself with a simple yes/no question.
Create a Ritual
Pick a specific time each week when you’ll send 12 outreach messages. Boom. Done.
Get Help
Have your EA locate email addresses or LinkedIn profiles for you and, ideally, create your outreach list.
Or ask your EA to craft a handful of 1:1:1 messages for each contact. Then you can choose the one you want to send.
4 Ways to Make Connecting Effective
Stay Right-Side Up
Keep the focus of your outreach message on Them—the person you’re connecting to.
That said, sometimes other people are interested in you, so don’t hide yourself. Unless you’re in witness protection. Then stay hidden.
Know Your Objective
The objective of your message is to generate engagement. Not to sell. Not to immediately talk about business.
Engagement leads to conversations, then conversations are where you connect.
Create a Script
If you’re anxious about the follow-up conversation when your outreach works, you won’t reach out.
Dispel that anxiety with a script.
Start every conversation with a Right-Side Up inquiry and/or an ice-breaker.
You can always talk about food—that’s a good ice breaker.
Ironically, talking about ice is usually not a good ice breaker.
Spread Your Love Wide
Set a goal of having deep, one-on-one conversations with 100 A1s each year.
If you chat with 100 A1s you’ll being in the position of turning down tons of consulting opportunities.
If you don’t have 100 A1 relationships, consider yourself typical. In that case, expand your outreach to your entire Network Core.
If your Network Core contains less than 100 contacts, expand your outreach to B2s then C1s and C2s. That should bring you up over 100.
Alternatively, participate in a collaborative marketing effort with someone who has a large tribe, and use that opportunity to bolster your network.
Do you find connecting difficult? If so, what makes it hard for you?
If not, what makes connecting easy and effective for you?
Text and images are © 2024 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
I find it much easier to connect when the goal of selling consulting services is explicitly off the table. Back when I started out, I was wondering for every conversation how to plug in my services. No wonder everything felt awkward and transactional.
It is so much easier to have a natural convo when there is zero expectation of profit shaking out of it. Ironically, if you have enough of those conversations with the people in the orbit of your target, profit will follow… Provided your contact walks away with a concise understanding (5 words or so) of what you do.
I help restaurants fix loyalty programs. If that’s all they remember, the conversation is a total success. But even if they don’t, it’s fine. (Oh, and I keep these conversations to 15 minutes unless it’s someone I really personally missed!)
Wow, Olga, you’ve provided the perfect case study.
As you’ve eloquently demonstrated, connecting feels icky and difficult when you’re trying to sell. However, when we just connect to build relationships it’s much easier. (It’s also easier if you don’t go assuming that others expect you to sell.) Outstanding Fishing Line, by the way, and I admire your ability to keep your conversations to 15 minutes!
Thank you so much for sharing, Olga!
I got into the habit of scheduling 15 min AND starting out with “such a busy day, only have 15 min” (which is always true, but it’s not always back to back appointments). If the conversation is particularly interesting, I let it run over or mention “my next appointment got pushed so I have a few more minutes – are you good to continue?”.
Outstanding, Olga!
Great suggestions David. What are your thoughts on using LinkedIn as a means to connect with contacts (e.g., messaging them, responding to posts they’ve made, “liking” their posts, sending a congratulatory note on key milestones such as work anniversaries). My experience is that this is effective with contacts who regularly use LinkedIn, but others may never get the message as they don’t engage with their LinkedIn profile frequently.
Good question, David. My experience directly aligns with yours: LinkedIn is a great channel for some contacts. It seems to be reasonably binary. Some people are very active on LinkedIn and some jump on every 3-6 months.
I appreciate your raising that question. Maybe some readers have a different experience with LinkedIn.
“Reaching out is like smiling at someone on the street. Maybe they won’t smile back, but you’ve still put positive energy into the world, and that’s a good thing.” So true! And it costs you nothing!
And many times someone will get back to you, or your paths will cross for some reason, and they will say: “I’m so glad you dropped me that note, I’m sorry I didn’t respond at the time.”
FWIW, I like to ask contacts about other contacts, to talk about mutual acquaintances – that way I have a ready opener: “Your name came up when I was talking with so-and-so the other day…” It’s an easy opener, especially when I can follow with: “We were talking about X, and they thought you’d have an opinion about it” or “They told me X about you, how’s that going?”
Chatting about other people can be a great tactic, Richard. And, as you suggest, it gives you an excuse to talk to the next person in the chain. Of course, a lot of the time your contact says, “Yuri? Sure… great guy. I haven’t talked with him in years!” because, after all, your contact bites at connecting!
I’m glad you chimed in, Richard. Your idea is one a lot of readers will benefit from trying.
I have a really easy way that my spouse taught me for maintaining contacts. When you are thinking about a person or see something that reminds you about the person, just drop a quick text message to say hello and communicate why that person came to mind that day. There is no selling involved; it is a truly sincere reach out. Many times, this text leads to drinks or a coffee to catch-up. In addition, when you reach out about something business related in the future it really doesn’t feel as awkward.
Joe, that’s a great technique for contacts whose mobile numbers you have and who are okay on you using them. The percentage of people who are okay with that type of communication has grown very rapidly; however, to the confusion of those younger than 30, not everyone is open to receiving unsolicited text messages! That caveat aside, I love the technique and, as you said, it’s fast and easy.
Excellent contribution to the discussion, Joe. I’m glad you posted it!
I love your comment, David! So true about those younger than 30 and potential confusion about receiving unsolicited text messages. Over the years, I’ve learned that I can over think a reach out. It is so much better to just move fast, otherwise the reach out may never occur.
Exactly! Overthinking is the bane of action. Connection takes action.
You said it perfectly, Joe.
Connection is a deep human need which helps explain its role in biz development. I learned early that being intentional is essential — hence, the scheduled reminders and habit-builders. In high school, when I smiled and connected, many smiled back. Word would reach me that so-and-so “likes you because you are nice to her.” Wow! Just for smiling? At many levels, this is an enduring truth.
All sorts of wisdom packed into your comment, Terrel. The bar for being “liked” is shockingly low: just attend to the other person and act nice!
Very few contacts will be upset or offended because you reach out to them or express that you’re thinking about them.
Thank you for contributing a ton of value and your own experience, Terrel.