[Yes, they’re still coming: another installment of Radical Entrepreneurship.]

In the introduction (Chapter 0: Build Your Business), I beat to death the idea that the single most important part of building successful companies is unfailing persistence and determination, an unflappable commitment to start your company, and keep it going, no matter what.

But thereís one other trait that nearly all successful entrepreneurs share: they network like itís their job. Because, frankly, it is. A strong and extensive network is far and away the single best tool that any entrepreneur can have at their fingertips.

Literally every other aspect of starting a company ñ from hiring and financing, to sales, execution and business development ñ is largely made possible by the same thing: knowing the right people, or being a single introduction away.

That last bit is key ñ itís not just who you know, but who they know that makes networks powerful. If you have 250 names in your Rolodex, and each has 250 in theirs, youíre suddenly one step away from over 60,000 potential customers, collaborators, investors and employees. Sixty thousand!

That estimate of 250 people per network, by the way, comes from Joe Girard, a Chevrolet salesman whose prolific success put him in Guinness as The Worldís Greatest Salesman. After researching the question of average network size, Girard concluded that most people invite about 250 friends and family members to major life events ñ weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs. He coined that fact Girardís Law of 250, and credited his business use of it with much of his success.

[Girard wasnít just a salesman, he was a decent researcher, as recent academic research on human networks seems to confirm that most people have networks of 200-250 people they know well enough to, say, stop and have a drink with if they ran into them at a bar.]

As Girard knew, each person you bring into your network, each person with whom you build a relationship, can put you a step closer to 250 friends, family members and colleagues, any of whom might invest in your company or work for it, buy from your company or cut you a great deal on the services and supplies youíll need to run and grow it.

Hiring, fundraising, sales ñ theyíre all numbers games. The techniques and tactics Iíll be sharing in subsequent chapters can help you boost your batting averages, but only networking can push up the number of times you get to go to bat.

2.1 Time to go Fishing?

Of course, if your network consists of an average number of people you know averagely well, youíre bound for decidedly average results. So, for a moment, stop and see exactly where you stand.

First, check your contact list ñ hopefully itís electronic, perhaps itís a Rolodex on your desk. If you donít have anything but numbers in your cell phone or a rough list in your head, at least you have nowhere to go but up.

How many records do you have? More than 250? More than 500? At the moment, Iím at 2,243, and I suspect I still have a very long way to go. Consider senators and presidential candidates, who in one study were all found to have significantly more than 10,000 live contacts each!

Importantly, thatís 10,000 ëliveí contacts, the only ones that really count: those people youíre still actively in touch with, those with whom you have strong and ongoing relationships.

How many of your contacts are really ëliveí? Head to the first contact on your list whose last name starts with the letter ëpí, then pull out the next ten to check.

Of those ten: how many have you spoken with in the last six months? How many have you not spoken with in more than two years? What are the odds that any of them, if called last-minute, would get out of bed to pick you up at the airport at two in the morning?

And, if they wouldnít make that airport run, what would possibly make you think theyíd come through for you in business situations, most of which involve them putting their own reputation on the line?

Next, take another look at those same ten people. Do you know their birthdays? Their spouseís and kidsí names? Where they were born, where they went to school, what they do for fun?

All of those pieces of information are invaluable intelligence. If you donít know them now, itís time to start collecting.

Which, basically, is the point. Wherever you stand, you can always improve. Read the rest of the chapter, put the ideas to work, then come back in a year and do the same self-tests again. I suspect youíll be pleasantly shocked by how far your network has come.

One last test, this one to simply gauge whether youíve been getting out to meet enough people in the first place ñ people who might eventually end up in your network, and point you towards the investors, employees, customers or collaborators your company will need.

This particular test is courtesy of Malcom Gladwell, as detailed in his great book on the power of social networks, The Tipping Point. On this page is a list of 250 surnames, pulled at random from the Manhattan phone book. Head through the list, giving yourself a point for anyone you know with that surname. For this one, use ëknowí loosely ñ if you sat next to a guy on an airplane who introduced himself with the same last name, thatís good enough. Give yourself a point for each, and multiples count ñ if you know three Johnsonís, thatís three points. Ready:

Algazi, Alvarez, Alpern, Ametrano, Andrews, Aran, Arnstein, Ashford, Bailey Ballout, Bamberger, Baptista, Barr, Barrows, Baskerville, Bassiri, Bell, Bokgese, Brandao, Bravo, Brooke, Brightman, Billy, Blau, Bohen, Bohn, Borsuk, Brendle, Butler, Calle, Cantwell, Carrell, Chinlund, Cirker, Cohen, Collas, Couch, Callegher, Calcaterra, Cook, Carey, Cassell, Chen, Chung, Clarke, Cohn, Carton, Crowley, Curbelo, Dellamanna, Diaz, Dirar, Duncan, Dagostino, Delakas, Dillon, Donaghey, Daly, Dawson, Edery, Ellis, Elliott, Eastman, Easton, Famous, Fermin, Fialco, Finklestein, Farber, Falkin, Feinman, Friedman, Gardner, Gelpi, Glascock, Grandfield, Greenbaum Greenwood, Gruber, Garil, Goff, Gladwell, Greenup, Gannon, Ganshaw, Garcia, Gennis, Gerard, Gericke, Gilbert, Glassman, Glazer, Gomendio, Gonzalez, Greenstein, Guglielmo, Gurman, Haberkorn, Hoskins, Hussein, Hamm, Hardwick, Harrell, Hauptman, Hawkins, Henderson, Hayman, Hibara, Hehmann, Herbst, Hedges, Hogan, Hoffman, Horowitz, Hsu, Huber, Ikiz, Jaroschy, Johann, Jacobs, Jara, Johnson, Kassel, Keegan, Kuroda, Kavanau, Keller, Kevill, Kiew, Kimbrough, Kline, Kossoff, Kotzitzky, Kahn, Kiesler, Kosser, Korte, Leibowitz, Lin, Liu, Lowrance, Lundh, Laux, Leifer, Leung, Levine, Leiw, Lockwood, Logrono, Lohnes, Lowet, Laber, Leonardi, Marten, McLean, Michaels, Miranda, Moy, Marin, Muir, Murphy, Marodon, Matos, Mendoza, Muraki, Neck, Needham, Noboa, Null, O’Flynn, O’Neill, Orlowski, Perkins, Pieper, Pierre, Pons, Pruska, Paulino, Popper, Potter, Purpura, Palma, Perez, Portocarrero, Punwasi, Rader, Rankin, Ray, Reyes, Richardson, Ritter, Roos, Rose, Rosenfeld, Roth, Rutherford, Rustin, Ramos, Regan, Reisman, Renkert, Roberts, Rowan, Rene, Rosario, Rothbart, Saperstein, Schoenbrod, Schwed, Sears, Statosky, Sutphen, Sheehy, Silverton, Silverman, Silverstein, Sklar, Slotkin, Speros, Stollman, Sadowski, Schles, Shapiro, Sigdel, Snow, Spencer, Steinkol, Stewart, Stires, Stopnik, Stonehill, Tayss, Tilney, Temple, Torfield, Townsend, Trimpin, Turchin, Villa, Vasillov, Voda, Waring, Weber, Weinstein, Wang, Wegimont, Weed, Weishaus.

Now compare. In most groups, the aver
age score floats somewhere between thirty and forty. Well networked people score above ninety or a hundred. Where does that place you?

Here as well, however, there isnít a ërightí score. Simply gauge where you stand, follow the ideas in this chapter, come back in a year for a retest, and find yourself pleasantly thrilled by how far your networking skills have come.

And, trust me, itís well worth the effort. As I said before, literally every aspect of starting a company ñ from hiring and financing, to sales, execution and business development ñ all are largely made possible by the same thing: knowing the right people, or being a single introduction away. Made possible, in short, by building the right network.

2.2. How to Fish

Building a network is really a process in three parallel parts:

ï First, you need to identify and meet people who make valuable additions to your network.

ï Second, you need to establish the initial relationship ñ meet with the person one-on-one to bond and build an initial tie.

ï Third, you need to constantly build and maintain that new relationship, keeping it strong enough to draw upon when you need to, possibly years down the line.

All three are crucial to a successful network, so letís look at them each, one by one.

2.3. Where the Fish Are

In some ways, networking is one the easiest and most enjoyable parts of your job as an entrepreneur. Sure, itís technically work, but it certainly doesnít feel like it. Your rat-race employee friends will be insanely jealous ñ you get to meet interesting new people, have breakfast or lunch with them at new restaurants, and you get paid to do it? Hard work indeed, youíll reply, but someone has to do it. (Hah!)

Because networking is so fun, however, because it likely wonít seem like real work to you either, itís very easy to slack off as the pace of your company picks up. Donít! Donít let networking fall by the wayside. The more successful your company becomes, the more youíll need the flow of new and growing relationships that persistent networking provides.

To that end, make networking a habit. Start now, and donít stop doing it, ever. Meet someone new every week. One new person a week is exceedingly easy, doesnít take up much time. But, by the end of the year, those fifty new contacts will put you one introduction away from over 12,000 new people in their respective networks.

Never giving up, the most important part of entrepreneurship, is a mental stance you need internalize; networking, the second most important part of entrepreneurship, is a behavior you need to habitualize. Making sure youíre building that habit is the point of the one new person a week minimum.

In other words: no matter what else is going on in your company, always find time to meet someone new each week.

That leaves you, minimally, 50 new people to find this year. Which begs two questions: what kind of people should you meet, and where do you find them?

[Cliffhanger of an ending, I know; as this chapter (like most of the coming ones) is rather long, I’m splitting it up over several subsequent postings. Stay tuned.]