How To Be A Power Connector
Judy Robinett
“Other people have the answers, deals, money, access, power, and influence you need to get what you want in this world. To achieve any goal, you need other people to help you do it.” — JUDY ROBINETT
As anyone in business knows, strategic planning is critical to achieving long-term success. In How to Be a Power Connector, Power Connector Judy Robinett argues that strategic relationship planning should be your top priority.
When you combine your specific skills and talents with a clear, workable path for creating and managing your relationships, nothing will stop you from meeting your goals. With high-value connections, you’ll tap into a dynamic “power grid” of influence guaranteed to accelerate your personal and professional success.
Robinett uses her decades of experience connecting the world’s highest achievers with one another to help you build high-value relationships. She reveals all the secrets of her trade, including proven ways to:
- – Find and enter the best network “ecosystem” to meet your goals
- – Reach even the most unreachable people quickly and effectively
- – Get anyone’s contact information within 30 seconds
- – Create a “3-D connection” that adds value to multiple people at the same time
- – Access key influencers through industry and community events
- – Subtly seed conversation with information about interests and needs
- – Use social media to your best advantage
Robinett has based her methods on solid research proving that social groups begin to break up when they become larger than 150 people, and that 50 members is the optimal size for group communication. As such, she has developed what she calls the “5+50+100” method: contact your top 5 connections daily, your Key 50 weekly, and your Vital 100 monthly. this is your power grid, and it will work wonders for your career.
A power connector creates high-quality connections between individuals and their networks. Power connectors seek to add value by putting the best people in touch with the best resources, with the goal of creating greater success for all concerned.
Three Important Truths About Building Strong Business Relationships
You walk into a gathering of some of the key thought leaders, influencers, and business people in your industry. You know many of these people by reputation, but you’ve never had the chance to meet them face-to-face. This is a golden opportunity for you to get to know individuals that could be essential to your future success.
As you look into the room, what are you thinking? And how will you approach the people whom you hope to turn into valuable business contacts?
In my thirty-year career (as a Fortune 500 executive, CEO, and now as an angel consultant specializing in putting early-stage companies in front of angel and venture capital investors) I’ve had the chance to enter many rooms where lots of people with money, fame, or power (sometimes all three) congregate to do deals with each other. Especially at the beginning, I was the “odd woman out.” I didn’t know anyone, nor did I feel I had much to offer that would create connections with such high-powered people.
That is, until I discovered three important truths about building strong business relationships.
First, everyone needs something. Whether it’s a batting coach for their kid in Little League, a new source of funding for their start-up, a good dry-cleaner or virtual assistant, a friend on the city council, a recommendation or testimonial, an employee or employer, or someone to purchase their billion-dollar company—all of us are seeking for help of some kind.
That leads to the second truth: whatever people need, they will most likely find it through their connections with others. The people in your network are some of the most valuable assets you can have, both personally and professionally—and the people in their networks multiply that value exponentially. A 2011 study by the Pew Interest Group showed that the average person in the U.S. had 634 social ties in their network. Multiply those 634 people by the people they know, and it means you can reach almost 402,000 people just through the friends of your friends.
But the third truth is the most important: building strong relationships is easy when you help people get what they want and need. Whenever you meet someone—whether they are President of the United States or the guy at the corner coffee shop—keep one question in your mind: “How can I help?” Then get to know the other person, find out what’s important to them, and do your best to help them get what they want or need.
Ultimately, the best way to help people is to connect them with those who can provide needed resources. That’s what power connectors do—use the power of the individuals in their networks to help others gain access to the answers, deals, money, access, power, and influence they require.
Judy Robinett is the author of “How to Be a Power Connector: The 5-50-150 Rule,” released by (McGraw-Hill, 2014), and the coauthor of a chapter in “Crowdfunding for Dummies” by Sherwood Neiss, Jason W. Best, and Zak Cassady-Dorion (Wiley, 2013).
Robinett is a business thought leader who has been profiled in The Street, The Huffington Post, Forbes, The Washington Post and Bloomberg Businessweek as a sterling example of the new breed of “super connectors” who use their experience and networks to accelerate growth and enhance profitability.
In her more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and corporate leader, Robinett has served as the CEO of both public and private companies and in management positions at Fortune 500 companies. She has been on the advisory boards of Illuminate Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California; Pereg Ventures, adventure capital firm based in New York; Springboard Enterprises based in Washington, DC; and Women Innovate Mobile (WIM) accelerators based in New York City.
Robinett lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
