Strong ties

One of my UPS customers is Simpson Strong Tie, which reminded me of strong ties vs weak ties, which reminded me of this blog post I did earlier this year:

Network Marketing

Only two words, but most people (including me), have it all backwards. I've heard this before but it's finally starting to sink in. Network marketing is not about marketing your stuff to the people in your network, it's about getting the people in your network to market your stuff to their network.

I think I've heard that the average person has 200 contacts in their phone. Or is it 200 Facebook friends? Doesn't really matter, so let's say that your network consists of 200 people. If you try to sell your stuff to them, if you're lucky maybe 10% (20 people) may buy from you. But if your 200 friends market to their 200 friends, we're now talking about 40,000 people hearing about your product or service. If 10% of those people are interested, you've now got 4,000 customers.

But how do you get your friends to market for you? One way is to post stuff on FB that's worthy of being liked, shared or commented on. Another way is to train them on what to tell their friends. Here's an excellent podcast from Dr. Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI (Business Networking International) on the subject.

And LinkedIn is really built on the idea of reaching your 2nd degree connections, that is the people who are connected to your connections. Here's an article on how to reach out to them. According to LinkedIn, I have 319 1st degree connections, but 201,712 2nd degree connections. That's an average of  just over 632 connections per person.

And there is also the theory that weak ties can be more influential than strong ties, because your strong ties tend to be more like you, therefore they already tend to know the same people you do and they know about the same things, such as job openings, as you do. However, the people that they know that are outside of your group, your weak ties, will likely have other interests or needs than your close group of friends.

LinkedIn will also list your 3rd degree connections (I know a guy who knows a guy). These are very weak ties but you may still have some influence over them according to this article.

So, quit trying to sell to your friends! Instead, let them sell for you to their friends.

Interesting days

Today - Humbug Day, Ribbon Candy Day, Short Story Day, International Dalek Remembrance Day, and Crossword Puzzle Day

Tomorrow - Forefathers' Day and Date Nut Bread Day

Next Monday - Card Playing Day Gin? Poker? Bridge? Go Fish? What's your favorite?

January 21 - Squirrel Appreciation Day, Hugging Day and Granola Bar Day