Blog · Method
How to optimise your marketing network
Having a network isn't the same as networking. The difference lies in four habits almost nobody keeps up consistently — and in the fourth, which is what separates those who get referrals from those who wait for them.
Published 8 September 2021 · revised 16 August 2026
The habits
Four things to do, in this order
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1 · Identify who really refers you
Within your network there's a small group of people who understand what you do and are always willing to help. Recognise them. Only after that does it make sense to worry about outside networks, friends of friends.
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2 · Step outside your comfort zone
Speaking at a conference, organising a networking evening. It isn't risky in the strict sense, but it requires doing something you don't already know how to do — and it's the step almost everyone puts off.
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3 · Ask, ask, ask
A good process doesn't revolve around you but around the people in your network: what they're looking for, what they actually need. To understand your network you have to know it, and to know it you have to ask questions.
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4 · Don't forget the follow-up
Reconnecting after time has passed, and above all: if you tell someone you'll call them, call them. It's the simplest thing on the list and the one nobody does.
One word at a time
"Your personal soldiers" is the image to change
The 2021 version of this article called the people who refer you to others just that. It's an effective image, and it says the wrong thing: it describes a one-way relationship, and one-way relationships run dry.
The soldier
Fights for you. The benefit flows in one direction, and your job is to hold onto them — that is, to compensate them, one way or another, for something they do for free.
The Connector
In the discipline, the person who introduces you is called a Connector and doesn't work for you: they share their own profile because they want to receive people worth meeting in return. Value flows in both directions, and that's why the relationship holds up over time.
And when they introduce someone, they put their own reputation on the line (Sixth law): they aren't a soldier following orders, they're a peer taking on a risk. The difference shows the moment you stop asking.
A network of soldiers has to be commanded. A network of peers sustains itself.
The first step
Where your company stands, with a number
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