Make a list of present and past work colleagues.
Write down everyone, because one name makes you think of another!

From this list, make a shortlist of people for whom network building is likely to be important and that you feel you would like to have as part of your team.

In the end, achieving the results you desire from any endeavour typically boils down to forming the proper habits that you consistently practice.

To begin with, you need deliberate daily focus until a daily habit becomes almost automatic. Part of the key to 

forming a new habit is to make the activity so small that you can’t talk yourself out of it.

It’s not about setting a goal to do a lot each day; it’s about consistently doing a small amount each day so that you form a habit.

Typically, when you form a habit, you get much better results, which inspires you to do more!

Small habits (such as reaching out to others on LinkedIn) repeated over 6 months start producing significant results!

Another key is to become accountable to your Connector.

Keep them in the loop about how you are going and seek their advice if you get off track.

The following short audio introducing the Mini-Habits book by Stephen Guise is invaluable.

How you allocate your network building time will significantly impact how quickly you achieve your end goals.

Most of us constantly struggle with the issue of how best to invest our time.

It is inspiring to realise that your goal should be to multiply your time rather than just manage it. This is well explained by Rory Vaden in his TED talk “How to multiply your time”.

The “Urgent” always seems to be trying to steal our time away from investing in our “Important”, doesn’t it?

This is why there are so many great resources in the CC on how you allocate your time.

When considering how you spend your time, it helps to evaluate whether you are pursuing pleasing results or pleasing methods. 

Many people waste a great deal of time pursuing what boils down to pleasing methods that yield mediocre results. And they don’t even realise they are doing it!

For example, many people spend time continually meeting great new people. However, relationships are not created from a one-off meeting. In other words, you need a systematic way of effectively and efficiently building relationships.

We recommend rowing with 2 oars when it comes to network building. With one oar, you should deliberately allocate time to building your team. With the other oar, you should allocate time to advocating for those in your team and having 1-on-1 meetings arranged by others for you.

You will also spend time learning how to build your network. However, the tools, hints, and tips you learn in the CC could save you several hours each week in other activities.

Where you spend your time in the CC partly depends on your end goals and your means goals.

For example, suppose your means goals include having an ever-increasing number of people advocating for you.

In that case, you should allocate part of the time you devote to the CC to finding network-building partners capable of building advocating teams.

Lead by example!

As Albert Schweitzer famously said: example is not the main thing in influencing others; it’s the only thing.”

Show your team that you prioritise team-building by reaching out to a carefully filtered list of potentially like-minded others on LinkedIn (as busy as you are). You have formed a habit and do a little bit every day.

When you set the example, you will find a few others in your group are also prepared to form small network-building habits.

 You only need a few active team members to create a rapidly growing team of team building advocates.

It helps when you think of the network you build as “the beast that feeds all other beasts.”

Are you building your network to support:

• An existing business or career?
• To support as yet undiscovered possibilities?
• Both?

When you started your current business, what if you started with a much larger number of people who would advocate for you? In other words, you had already started building your team of team building advocates, and as a result, you had developed a large number of know, like and trust relationships?

Typically you build trust by helping others meet great contacts. Those you have built trust with are then usually keen to reciprocate by introducing you to relevant others.

Would building a network in advance make the transition from employee to business owner safer?

We often encourage aspiring business owners to

(1) Define the End Goals they want to achieve from building a business

(2) Expect to find great business ideas in the process of building their network

(3) Build trust with a large number of people before starting their business so that they will have many others advocating for them when they launch their business

Our motto is network first, ideas second.

Building trusted relationships are easy when you clearly have no agenda because you do not currently have a business. However, what you have to offer, which is of great value to others, is the people you know in the team you are building and that you have met in the CC.

How many of your income-producing activities can your growing network contribute to?

As you build your network, it’s easy to find other business owners with whom you can structure a commercial arrangement. In addition, you can discover great potential customers or partners for business associates for such commercial partners.

Such commercial arrangements could mean you generate hands-off (and potentially ongoing) income generated from referrals - a very nice consequence of building your network.

Don’t wait till you have a pressing need for a network till you start building one!

• Networks are not good at feeding desperation!
• Know Like, and trust relationships are not developed overnight!
• Dig the well before you need the water!

Do you have a goal to develop Monthly Recurring Revenue?

Which would you say is more important

• The amount of money you earn or
• The type of money you earn

Growing, sticky, recurring income is far more valuable than many people realise.

Typically, what happens when you significantly increase your income?

In most countries, your average tax rate significantly increases. This means you retain proportionally less of the extra income you earn. Of the extra income you keep after-tax, there is a strong temptation to borrow more to finance a better lifestyle and/or to spend the extra income on overseas trips or other lifestyle-related items.

What happens if your income suddenly takes a dip while you are still responsible for paying your additional debt?

But, let’s say you are very disciplined, and you manage to save and invest most of your additional after-tax income that you are working so hard to achieve, and you don’t take on a large amount of additional debt.

Let’s say you invest in paying off the mortgage on your own home. Then you start investing in shares and property.

Let’s say you manage to save and invest one million dollars, and you settle for a safe return of 5% per annum. That would return you $50,000 per annum. 

How long would it take you to save one million dollars if you saved, say, $30,000 per year out of your after-tax income? Roughly 30 years.

So after 30 years, you’ve paid off your house and have an income of $50,000 per annum. Is that enough to live the high life?

What else do you need to consider in your quest to earn additional income?

• Will you need to invest more hours in income-earning activities
• Will you have increased responsibility & stress?
• What’s your journey likely to look like while you are earning this additional income over the years
• Will you have the time to create memories, relationships and experiences with loved ones?

What if instead of focusing on earning additional income to invest in assets that can produce passive income, you focus on building assets that can produce ongoing Monthly Recurring Income?

How difficult would it be to develop a sticky, growing recurring income of at least $50,000 per annum from a business or as a strategic partner of other businesses?

Let’s say you decided that you would develop growing recurring income but NOT by having your own business. Instead, you would become a strategic partner of other businesses.

What would you have to bring to the table?

Growing a large team of team building advocates, you will discover many great opportunities for your strategic partners.

Many people go into business with great ideas and concepts. However, their business often fails. The reason for failure was not that their idea was not good enough. Instead, they failed because they did not have the network to help them make their ideas work. If you have the network, you can bring a precious asset indeed to the table.

Let’s say you start building a network with the primary goal of supporting your existing business. When you realise how much more can be done through the network, start thinking of other ways the network can help you generate MRR. Increasing MRR without increasing effort on your part means you have more free time and additional income.

In a 2013 article in The Huffington Post, Porter Gale, author of the bestselling book, Your Network Is Your Net Worth: Unlock the Hidden Power of Connections for Wealth, Success, and Happiness in the Digital Age wrote, 

"I believe your social capital, or your ability to build a network of authentic personal and professional relationships, not your financial capital, is the most important asset in your portfolio." 

She goes on to elaborate how the book explains her affirmations that our net worth is not based solely on the size of our portfolio, but on our ability to work with other people who share our passions and values. This network of people will become an interpersonal safety net that guarantees greater output and personal fulfilment.

Powerful networks mean powerful business opportunities. More and more in today's business world, leaders prefer to become intermingled in important transactions with people they trust. Relationships establish and fortify that trust. That's why serious serial entrepreneurs, influencers, deal makers and multiple project players choose to seek out exclusive business networking opportunities.

Being visible and getting seen is a benefit of building your network that is vital in building and growing your career and business. 

More than this, being visible and getting seen in tandem with the right people can also mean an increase in your own standing among peers and others in your industry. “It’s not what you know, but who you know” is true in business around the world. 

If you want a successful business, then you need to have a great source of relevant connections in your network that you can call on when you need them.

Building your network provides you with a great source of connections and opens the door to highly influential people that can be a boon for your business. 

Often, just having a networking relationship with certain people enhances your standing and credibility, which therefore helps your business in numerous ways. And that influential person will already have a network you can tap into as well.

Building your network can help to build your reputation as a knowledgeable, reliable, and supportive person who can provide useful information and connections to people who need it. 

You are also more likely to get more leads and referrals as you will be the one that pops into their head when they need what you offer. 

The right network can put you into contact with high quality, trusted, and powerful connections throughout numerous business and professional communities.

Building your network builds your knowledge power, and not just through gaining insider information on the latest big deal. 

Having like-minded business owners and entrepreneurs with whom you can confer gives you the opportunity to learn and obtain advice from them on any conceivable topic related to your business and obtain that important work-life balance. 

Family and business in this culture are inexorably entwined, so maintaining good family and business relationships are top in everyone's mind.

Building your network is a superb way to tap into advice and expertise that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to obtain. 

Solid advice from the right person can sometimes be a critical factor in business and personal success. That knowledge can come through intense conversations, dinner meetings, or even casual discussions of mutual interest.

The people with whom you associate and spend time influence who you are and what you become. 

Therefore, it is important to surround yourself with positive, uplifting people that help you to grow and thrive as a business owner and as a person. 

Positive people naturally exude their best attributes; these are the individuals with whom you want to associate and connect.

Building your network is great for this because entrepreneurs, business owners, and successful people who are themselves involved in network-building are typically people who are pursuing excellence in their business and personal lives and are naturally positive and uplifting. 

You cannot help but receive a charge just from being in their presence. 

The knowledge you may gain is important, but the mindset you can adopt from them is invaluable.

Regularly participating in the right network and pushing yourself to engage with people you don’t know, will help to increase your confidence. 

This is vitally important as a business owner or entrepreneur because your business growth depends on talking to the right people and forging lasting connections. 

If you are not very confident, network-building is a great pathway to gaining the confidence you need for success. 

Pushing yourself to connect with others and being accepted into a network alongside them is a great confidence booster. As you become a part of the group, opening in conversations and creating lasting connections with people, further enhance your confidence.

In addition to the business-related benefits of network-building, the personal satisfaction you can gain from contributing to the growth and opportunity of others is often the great reward. 

Building your network can and should provide altruistic opportunities as well as business rewards. These may come through connections with other network partners who serve in non-profit causes or through the casual or structured mentoring of others.

Mentoring is an important aspect of network-building. 

Virtually everyone has gained value from a mentoring relationship, either formally or informally. 

Bill Gates often refers to his ongoing relationship with Warren Buffett as a mentor. Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg counted Apple Founder Steve Jobs as a key mentor. 

If you have learned any lessons about life and business, you have something to pass on to others. Healthy people have both inlets where people invest in them, and outlets where they themselves invest in other people. 

The Dead Sea is dead because it has inlets but no outlet. To thrive as successful people, we need to be receiving quality and pouring quality into others around us. This is a defining virtue of building your network. 

Network-building is about sharing, not taking. It is about forming trust and helping one another toward goals. Regularly engaging with your contacts and finding opportunities to assist them helps to strengthen the relationship. By doing this, you sow the seeds for reciprocal assistance when you need help to achieve your goals.

Your network can be an excellent source of new perspectives and ideas to help you in your role. 

Exchanging information on challenges, experiences and goals is a key benefit of network-building because it allows you to gain new insights that you may not have otherwise thought of.

Far from it being a nuisance, most people love being asked for help. It’s flattering and makes them feel useful. 

If you’re struggling with a decision, challenge or new direction, calling up a trusted former colleague, mentor, teacher or friend to organise a coffee can be beneficial to both of you, as they will, in turn, think of you when next they have a challenge.

Offering helpful ideas in return is an excellent way to build your reputation as an innovative thinker.

Create value for other network participants by listening carefully, following up on conversations, remembering names, and offering your knowledge and expertise.

You can then help to build your reputation as being a knowledgeable, reliable and supportive member of your profession by offering useful information or tips to people who need it.

Expanding your contacts can open doors to new opportunities for business, career advancement, personal growth, or simply new knowledge. Active network-building helps to keep you top of mind when opportunities such as job openings arise and increases your likelihood of receiving introductions to potentially relevant people or even a referral.

Don’t forget that many jobs don’t even get advertised – particularly as your career advances – so being a recognised part of networks is a key way to gain access to opportunities that you might not have otherwise.

Network-building is a great opportunity to exchange best practice knowledge, learn about the business techniques of your peers and stay abreast of the latest industry developments. A wide network of informed, interconnected contacts means broader access to new and valuable information.

The opportunity to gather new information is an often-overlooked benefit of network-building, as it’s not the most obvious one.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of your professional realm and end up in a rut. By talking to others in your field or people with expertise in a particular area, you can gain insights that only come from viewing a situation with fresh eyes. Asking for opinions from contacts you trust or admire can help you see things in a new light and overcome roadblocks that you might not have known how to circumvent otherwise.

Of course, the point of network-building is to develop and nurture professional relationships, but some of the strongest and most long-standing friendships are borne from work connections. 

Your networking contacts are probably like-minded people with similar goals as your own, so it’s not unlikely that your professional support network will spill over into your personal friendships.

As long as you have a strong network of professional connections, you can be confident that someone within your sphere will be able to answer even your toughest questions. And, if there’s no definitive answer, you’ll have a solid sounding board to bounce ideas off and put into action step-by-step plans to tackle bigger problems. 

A company was sold to Oracle for $871 million precisely because its co-founder had previously built strong, shared relationships with Oracle.

By Alp Mimaroglu

Some people hate it, some people love it, but at least we can all agree: Networking is one of the most important business skills.

Paul Teshima knows about networking. A co-founder of Eloqua, he is now the CEO and co-founder of Nudge.ai, an AI-powered networking platform that shows you not just the number of connections you have, but the strength of your relationships, too. Nudge.ai literally “nudges” you when there’s a sales opportunity you're overlooking.

The best business leaders and institutions understand that your network is your net worth, and they do everything they can to invest in their relationships. But I wanted to learn more about how you can actually build relationships. So, I took advantage of an opportunity to speak with Teshima about growing networks and building trust-based business relationships. 

Your network really is your net worth.

Eloqua, a marketing automation and intelligence platform, was sold to Oracle for $871 million back in 2012. A lot of people already know that. But what they may not know is why the whole deal went through so seamlessly; and that was precisely because Teshima had built strong, shared relationships with the people at Oracle. In fact, Eloqua was purchased for more than 200 percent of its estimated public market value -- for a $400 million-plus increase in shareholder net worth.

Simply put, Teshima knows a heck of a lot about marketing, selling, and networking. Here are five things I learned from him about building powerful relationships that could impact your own net worth and help you overcome any challenge.

1. “Weak ties” will improve your chances of success

The Number 1 predictor of career success is the size and openness of your network, or what Teshima likes to call “the strength of weak ties.” That means that it's not enough to simply network within the bubble of your industry or profession -- you have to branch out. Meet with people outside of your immediate sphere of influence, and get comfortable forming those weak ties. This will pay off in spades in the long run.

Also don't expect to build up a network for the moment when you need to make a lot of sales. 

No one wants to meet with someone who reeks of desperation. Instead, build up your network before you need it – because people will smell the fact that you’re reaching out only to get something.

2. Networking isn’t about selling a specific product or service.

No surprise: Most people suck at selling. And that fact directly correlates to another fact which is that most people deliberately network only to sell a specific product or service.

So, you can’t just focus on selling, even if that is your goal; that’s tacky. Instead, approach networking as a way to practice relationship-building. Your networking efforts should largely be product- and service-agnostic.

According to Teshima, “The best salespeople today believe that the best part of their business is the relationships that they build.”

3. Successful relationships are built on mutual trust.

If you want people to work with you, they need to trust you first. You have to be able to truly offer something of value and expect nothing in return. Teshima says that, “You have to invest in relationships . . . and keep in mind that each person and each relationship is different.”

Here is how, he says, you can offer something of value if you don’t know a person: “The best type of activity you can do as a relationship-seller is connect your buyer with someone else. If you do that, you give them access to somebody that can add value to them” (which is precisely why LinkedIn is so popular).

Further, when you introduce a new connection to someone he or she really needs to know, three great things happen:

1) The new connection is genuinely grateful.

2) The person you introduced your contact to is flattered that you thought of him or her.

3) Both parties remember you as the connector.

4. Personalize your approach for everyone.

The important thing to understand is that when you’re trying to get a person to trust you, you can’t be a one-trick pony. You have to work for that trust, because he or she is under no obligation to trust you. Saying nice things, especially general ones, is insufficient. You need to form a connection through personalization, just as you would do with marketing.

The best-case scenario is an introduction to someone because of a strong, shared relationship. If you don’t have that, then you need to be strategic. According to Teshima, there’s a personalization hierarchy. “First, focus on shared interests and passions, on the personal stuff. Then look at that person’s company and what they’re doing there. Finally, look at their work history.”

Another great way to develop trusting relationships is by simply reaching out regularly to everyone in your network. Thank those people for what they did for you in the past, see how they're doing and make sure they haven’t forgotten you.

5. Your network exists outside of work too.

Let’s not forget that your extended network goes far beyond your work relationships. According to Teshima, “The best relationships you have in business are probably not from your current job or any job at all.” In other words, when networking, think about all of your relationships.

Bottom-line: You should always be developing your network, even if you happen to be at a job you don’t like or care about. You never know whom you’ll meet, where you’ll meet him or her or where you’ll be in another year or two. Unlike any single job or company, your network stays with you forever.

Life -- and work -- are all about relationships.

A lot of people ask Teshima why he’s doing this; founding a company for a second time. Why go through the grueling effort of pulling together a team, scrapping for funding and building a startup from scratch when he's already sold Eloqua?

“I think if you were to ask any successful startup person, they would say the best part of building a billion-dollar company is working with the team you get and the customers you get," Teshima told me. "It’s all about the relationships you build on the journey, even if you fail.”

So, remember: Your network is your net worth. If you think you could be better at networking, then start small and simple. Try "nudging" at least one person a day, whether that’s someone you’ve fallen out of touch with or someone you’ve been meaning to get in touch with.

Then watch as, over time, good things happen.

The truth is that building your network is no longer an optional extra for most people. It has become essential. In which case, it is critical to learn how to most effectively and efficiently build a team of team building advocates. That is why the Connect Collaborative exists. 

We want to help you become confident about building your personal team within the CC and interact with others in the CC building their teams. In addition, we want to help you build your network to increase the amount of time you have available for pursuits outside of work, while increasing the results you desire from your work.

Like anything worthwhile, building a team of team building advocates will take a committed effort.

Therefore, before you start, you must realise the actual value of the asset you are building and begin with the end in mind.

Are you building your network to increase your existing business?

If so, how scalable is your business?

If your business is not set up for scale and your team of advocates and others in the CC refer you more business than you can handle, will you feel overwhelmed?  

Will you feel like scaling down your network-building activities once you have more work than you can handle?

As you develop an exponentially growing team of team building advocates, you will develop many know, like, and trust relationships that can help many others commercialise their great ideas. In other words, the asset you are building can have immense value for others. 

This, in turn, means that your network can have significant commercial value for, you. In many cases, all you need to do is set up the commercial arrangements and advocate relevant connections.

As such, your network can do a lot more than just provide business for your business. So much more is possible.

If you are going to go to the effort of building your network, it is wise to start with a much bigger vision than just providing sales for your existing business because so much more is possible.

How highly do you value your free time? 

As Rory Vaden says in his TED talk “Multiply your time”, it is essential to look for ways to Multiply your time, not just manage it. 

And that is one of the major benefits of building your network - you can leverage your time.

The value of building an exponentially growing network is invaluable when you consider that.

• Anyone
• Can sell anyone
• Except themselves

If you attempt to tell people how great you are, no one believes it.

But, on the other hand, if you sing the praises of someone you know, like, and trust to someone who you believe will benefit from that connection, it’s almost a done deal.

However, it is essential to realise that building and multiplying trusted relationships takes time. Trusted relationships are not built overnight. In other words, have patience.

In summary, here are some excellent questions:

• How scalable could your business become?
• How scalable is your business at the moment?
• When you focus on building a large team of team building advocates
  • What business ideas might you discover that are very scalable and can multiply your time so that you have more free time for other passion projects?

Have you thought about your end goals lately?

What if you could generate increasing amounts of income with decreasing amounts of time required to earn that income?

What would that enable you to do?
How possible do you believe that is?
What would need to happen to make that possible?

How could building your team of team building advocates help you achieve such goals?

When you build a large network, you may have a much bigger asset than you realise. For example, when you have an extensive network of know like and trust relationships, you have the connections that can help others launch their great ideas. As such, the network you have built can have significant commercial value to you.

What are your "YES BUTs?"

Perhaps even more importantly, what are the "YES BUT's?" of your team members likely to be?

One or more of your team members are likely to have “YES BUT’s” such as.

I would be ecstatic if I could achieve my End goals.
Who wouldn't be?
BUT I believe it's beyond my grasp.
Like most people, I'm struggling to survive day-to-day.
I just believe in working as hard as I can and hoping for the best.
I have some really tough circumstances.
I am so busy dealing with the "urgent" that.
I don't have the headspace to think about my End goals right now.
I'll get around to thinking about my End Goals when I get over the current crisis.
I feel overwhelmed with what's already on my plate.
I have to focus on keeping my business afloat.
I have promised myself that I will get around to thinking about my End Goals as soon as I feel a little less overwhelmed.
My End goals inspire me, BUT I just can't see a way of making them happen.
It’s great to have big dreams, BUT realistically, you need ways of making them happen and be prepared to take risks, don't you?
And I’m not a risk-taker.
I'm already putting too much time into work.
I need more balance.
Achieving lofty End Goals will require me to be out of balance for too long.
My priority right now is to make my business or career successful.
That’s why I want to build my network.
I’ll think about what business success means for me personally when I've made my business successful.

When you or your team members are thinking about “Yes Buts”, it helps to counteract them by asking questions such as:

How important are your End Goals?
Can I devote a minimal amount of time each day towards achieving my End goals even when I have so many other things to deal with?
Are you willing to focus on the solutions rather than the problems?
How open are you to discovering new ideas & different ways of doing things?
How open are you to looking at things from a different perspective?

If you haven’t had a chance yet, it’s worth taking the time to complete the Workshop 01 Quiz. You can easily access it from the mindmap in Workshop 02.

In Workshop 01, we asked you to prepare for Workshop 02 by thinking about some personal End Goals you’d like to achieve and some of the Means goals that would enable you to progress toward those End goals.

Let’s look at some example End goals.

Create more memories with my loved ones and close friends
Strengthen relationships with those close to me
Have more adventurous experiences – especially around travel
Make a greater difference in the lives of others

Now, let’s look at some example Means goals.

Discover more ways to increase my recurring income while decreasing the time required to earn that income

How important is it for you to clarify your End goals & your Means goals?

It’s always good to pause and set aside a small amount of time to think about where you are currently at and what you’d like your future to look like.

It’s great to let your Connector know what’s important to you. One of the best ways to do this is to complete the “Scale of 1 to 10” exercise. This exercise will help you also think about what really inspires and motivates you. You can also access this through mindmap Topic 01.

Following are some examples of the “Scale of 1 to 10” exercise:

Travel & Adventure
Being involved with projects that are exciting because they make a difference
Remaining free of toxic work environments
Being around like-minded others who inspire you
Having more time and money to invest in creating memories, relationships & experiences
Making a difference in the lives of others
Becoming a better version of you – developing your skills, posture & attitude – more confidence, less procrastination, leadership, etc
Financial Freedom
Income security (because job security really doesn’t exist, does it?)
Belonging and contributing to a community you respect
Decreasing the hours required to earn increasing income
Earning the same income with 1 or 2 days less work per week
Earning more income
Having more free time available outside work
Freeing yourself from the feeling of always being too busy
Setting up a better future for yourself and your loved ones
Digging the well before you need the water

Also, if you haven’t had a chance yet, it’s definitely worth watching the following videos accessible via Topic 01

End Goals vs Means Goals by Vishen Lakliani
Multiply your time by Rory Vaden
It starts with Why by Simon Sinek