Five People a Day

You don't have a prospecting problem. You have a reputation problem.

It’s probably not a bad reputation, per se, just one that hasn't been built intentionally enough to do the work you need it to do.

The reps that win in long sales cycles are usually the ones who've been showing up consistently in the right rooms long before anyone was ready to buy. By the time the conversation matters, the relationship already exists. Strong networking habits help to make the timing of deals, the biggest issue outside of your control in sales, irrelevant. That goes a long way toward supporting your success, while also maintaining your mental health and swagger, but that’s a post for another time.

And networking doesn't look like one thing. It's in-person events and industry conferences. It's online, in forums, comment sections, and LinkedIn threads. It's one-on-one coffee conversations and large group dinners. It's showing up in the same places regularly enough that people start to recognize you. It's going to the gym with your head on a swivel.

Wherever you are, the questions are the same…

• Who in this room should I know?

• Who in this room should know me?

The Five People Rule

Alice Heiman gave me the simplest networking advice I've ever heard.

Every day, talk to five people who can either buy from you or refer you.

She said like it was obvious… and it kind of is, except I don’t see very many people do it.

It certainly hit me like a punch in the face, and (checks calendar), I haven’t been doing it myself…

Five people a day isn't five cold calls. It's five real conversations with people already in your orbit or close enough to reach. A former customer you haven't talked to in a while. A peer in a complementary industry. Someone you met at an event last month and never followed up with. Someone at the gym who you see twice a week, who occasionally wears some company swag to sweat in.

It's a discipline, not a tactic. When it becomes a habit, your reputation builds itself.

Presence Is Not the Same as Intentionality

Most people confuse networking with just showing up. They go to events, collect business cards, connect on LinkedIn, and wonder why nothing comes of it.

Being visible is not the same as being valuable. Consistent value is what builds the kind of reputation that precedes you into a room.

Good networking means showing up with genuine curiosity before you need anything. It means asking better questions than "so what do you do?" It means following up not just because you have something to sell, but because the conversation was worth continuing.

It also means choosing where you show up. Not every room is worth your time. The ones worth showing up to are the ones where your best potential customers, or the people who know them, are also spending their time.

What It Actually Looks Like

Years ago, I found a client and eventually a full-time job by consistently showing up in the same place and participating.

No pitch. No agenda. No sequence. Just presence and genuine interest, over time.

That's the whole game.

The digital version works the same way. A thoughtful comment on someone's post is worth more than a connection request with no context. A direct message that references something specific they said is worth more than a template.

These aren't tactics. They're just how good conversations work.

Don’t miss this…

Networking isn't about finding your next customer. It's about being the person people think of when someone they know needs what you do. It's a slower game. It pays off in ways that are hard to trace back to a single touchpoint. By the time you need it, it's either already there or it isn't.

Before you build a cold outreach sequence, ask yourself:

• Is there a warmer path already in your network?

• Someone who knows this person, or someone like them?

• Someone who could make an introduction instead of you making a cold call?

Usually, there's a yes in there somewhere.

Five people a day. Not five strangers. Five people who could buy from you or refer you.

That's a very different number when you actually think about it.

This is part of a series on opportunity creation. Next up… industry partnerships.