Don't Just Network — Build Your 'Meaningful Network' to Maximize Your Impact

XO Group CEO Mike Steib built his fast-track career on the power of his network. Here's his incredibly granular and specific advice for how to do the same.

What ‘Meaningful Networks’ Look Like

Who are the people you personally care about, who in turn care about you? That’s your network. All opportunities for impact in your life will spring from the strength of those relationships. But, if you’re like most well-adjusted people, the word “networking” evokes images of awkward meet and greets, uninvited solicitations, and disingenuous interactions.

The way many people do it is gross. They get in touch out of nowhere in order to work an angle or ask for something under the guise of friendship. Too many people visualize their “network” as a list of names they can utilize to achieve an end goal. This is a mistake. You can do it differently — and when you do, you’ll have a powerful advantage.

If you want to build an effective network, you must focus on what you can do for other people, not what they can offer you. The way I think about it, everyone has four types of networks: Unfamiliar, Familiar, Intimate, and Meaningful. They’re nested concentric circles:

Your Unfamiliar and Familiar Networks are straightforward enough — people you don’t know at all and acquaintances you know a little, respectively. Your Intimate Network includes people you’ve gotten to know quite well. But your Meaningful Network is your true personal network of deep relationships and friendships. It’s your Meaningful Network that will make it possible for you to have the impact with your career and life that you desire.

There are three steps to welcoming more people into your Meaningful Network:

• Bringing people from your Unfamiliar Network into your Familiar Network by making initial contact and forming a connection.
• Bringing people from your Familiar Network into your Intimate Network by getting to know them well, understanding your commonalities, and finding ways you can be helpful to them.
• Bringing people from your Intimate Network into your Meaningful Network by investing in making their life better in an important way.

Your success at building a network is founded on one very important mindset: that you’re doing it based on your desire to know, appreciate, and help other people.

This is the only way to build real and lasting relationships. The help you provide others defines your impact and your life. When you take this approach, something fascinating happens: the relationships you build germinate over the years and come back to help you in unexpected, often life-changing ways. Here’s how to get started.

Unfamiliar → Familiar

This section is for people like me who find chatting up a stranger to be one of the most unnatural and uncomfortable acts in the world. Sadly, I spent years encountering people with fascinating and enriching knowledge, insights and experiences… and failing to get to know them. I have worked for years to develop a set of simple tools for connecting with others.

To make the giant leap with someone from Unfamiliar Network to Familiar Network, rely on these three acts:

1. Appear warm and friendly. Albert Mehrabian, professor emeritus of psychology at UCLA, identified in a study that human communication is over 55% visual (appearance, body language), 38% vocal (tone, volume, cadence of voice) and 7% verbal (what you actually say). So, to initiate contact and welcome someone in from your Unfamiliar Network, greet them properly:

• Use open body language - uncross your arms, stand tall, widen your shoulders, don’t block your heart.
• Bring warmth to your face - lift your chin, make and maintain eye contact, smile.
• Stretch your right hand forward - warmly, not aggressively.
• Speak in a confident voice - “Hi! I’m Mike Steib! I work down the hall in corporate overhead.”

2. Initiate a brief but enjoyable conversation.

3. Remember the person’s name.

I am terrible at this. It takes a ton of practice to get half-right, so I can — at least — tell you where we all go wrong.

With these techniques, you can break down the uncomfortable barriers that separate you from everyone around you — hundreds of potential acquaintances and future friends who pass through your life each day. Once someone is in your Familiar Network, you’re in a position to turn it into more.

Familiar → Intimate

You now have a strategy for exuding friendliness, overcoming awkwardness, and making people comfortable. The more you do this, the easier it will become. Next, you have the opportunity to really get to know a subset of people with whom you’d like to have a closer connection.

Just about everyone gets this next part wrong. When faced with an interesting new person in our Familiar Network, we tend to make one of two fundamental mistakes. First, we talk about ourselves.

So don’t talk about yourself. From now on, use every interaction as a chance to appreciate someone else by investigating their work and interests.

Approach conversations with the mindset of a batting practice pitcher in your new friend’s home run derby of personal greatness.

Never be afraid to move into conversations of substance. Here’s a set of questions that are always applicable to someone’s work, and that will encourage them to open up more:

• Tell me about the business model — who pays whom and who is delivering value to whom?
• What advantage do you offer over your competitors that get customers to choose you?
• What drew you to work in this particular industry?
• How big a piece of the overall business is your division?
• Are there new technologies affecting your business?
• It sounds like you’ve been successful? What makes someone unsuccessful in the role?

Intimate → Meaningful

As you get to know people better, you can decide where you want to build lasting relationships. There is only one way I know of to bring someone into your Meaningful Network: You’re going to do something important for them.

Bringing someone into your Meaningful Network requires effort and genuine caring for that person. I’d like to suggest three ways you can help others, and in the process grow your Meaningful Network:

1. Share knowledge. Find areas of overlap in your sets of expertise and opportunities to share things you know another person will find illuminating.

2. Make connections. One of the best ways to help others in your network is to expand their respective networks.

3. Offer support and friendship. When things break the other way and you get passed over or have a failure, your inbox gets a lot quieter and you only hear from your true friends.

Remember that you’re building a network of people you really like and want to see succeed. The more you contribute to interactions, the more people will look forward to them, and the more likely they are to think of you when they need advice, help and so on.

This same approach has given me the privilege of countless friendships, business deals, career opportunities, social invitations, and even a reception with the president at the White House. All because I was willing to invest in getting to know and helping people I already liked, without any express expectation of getting something in return. Think about it.