Why concentric circles of people in your network is not useful
A few days ago, I heard someone advising people new to networking on how to network. Of course, I was curious to hear what she had to say!
Her advice was to create a network of “concentric circles” of people.
Then meet with people in your inner most circle once a week. Meet with the next circle once a month. With the next circle, perhaps once a quarter. And with the outer most circle, meet once a year.
What she didn’t say — and what most people giving networking advice don’t say — is how to decide which people goes in which circle.
Instead, her emphasis was on keeping in touch.
This is unfortunate, because focusing on “keeping in touch” without knowing how or why can cause you a lot of unnecessary grief.
And if you’re using this “concentric circles” approach currently, and it’s not working for you, you’ve already experienced this “grief” first-hand.
So learn how to choose the right people and build your circles first.
Then schedule your weekly, monthly or quarterly meetings.
