Utilizing Your Contacts

After cleaning up your brand it is important to get yourself known. Many jobs are won not by what you know but rather by who you know. This is why it is critical to building a large active contact pool.

The key to this is having active contacts. You may have contact information for hundreds of people but if they have no idea who you are, having their contact information won't help you. It is far more advantageous to have a few strong contacts instead that you engage with regularly.

To ensure your contacts are active requires work. You want to remain top of mind so if you reach out to a contact, they will remember who you are. Find reasons to reach out to people regularly. Also, try to help your contacts whenever possible. This will not only help people to remember who you are but feel more obligated to help you later when you ask for it.

Just because your contacts may remember you may not mean they think positively of you. Provide relevant and engaging touchpoints to encourage your contacts to be excited to hear from you. Constantly pestering your contacts will only leave a sour taste in their mouth so the next time you reach out for a favor you are likely to be rejected.

Lastly, it is important to ask your contacts directly for help. A generic message to your network will receive far fewer responses than a direct request. People like to help others and to feel appreciated for it so when someone does go out of their way to make sure that you thank them or you are likely never to receive further help from them.