When I was given this book, How to Be a Power Connector: The 5+50+100 Rule for Turning Your Business Network into Profits, to consider it for the Business901 Podcast, my first thoughts was one of distaste for the awful word of networking. However, once I opened the book, I read it cover to cover in one seating. It’s been a while since I have done that. Judy Robinett’s book is kind of about networking but more importantly about how to effectively manage connections. If you are looking for a way to jump start your career and even somewhat an organization, this book should be on your reading list. 
An Excerpt from Next Week’s Business901 Podcast:
Joe: When I look at 5 + 50 + 100 – I’m a marketing guy, I segment everything. I have separate connections for everything. Should my connections be sorted by work and social or should they all be together?
Judy: Well, I recommend that people use the VIPorbit. Mike Muhney, who invented the CRM industry. He is the cofounder of ACT software. It’s a free app. Its rated number one for your iPhone or iPad, and you can rank people in different orbits. But they could belong to different orbits. Sometimes, I know someone who is a VC, who also is an author, who also is a friend. You literally could have them in different groups.
I met a gentleman who had forty thousand names in the database. He had them all segmented. This person is in real estate, this person is a banker, but at the end of the day forty thousand people – I would prefer that people have quality relationships that they can pick up the phone. Now if you invest in a relationship and develop that relationship you can go months without contacting that person. It really isn’t as difficult as a lot of people think to build and to manage.
What I recommend is the three metrics that I want people to have, which is; robust, deep and wide. Robust means that people will return your phone call or they will offer an introduction or they will bring you an opportunity. Deep is people that have influence, have power, have gravitas so they can make things happen for you. Then wide is across different industry segments, so that regardless of what you need, you’ve got some body in that group of fifty that can help you. I learned this accidentally Joe when I lived in a small thirty thousand town in Idaho and I was put on the hospital board of directors. I was writing a business weekly column for the newspaper on business ethics and leadership. My neighbor was the Senate Majority Leader and I work for a fortune 300 company. Well even though it was a small community, I could get anything done I needed because I had powerful people across different segments.
I replicated that model. First, regionally, then across the United States and now globally. So literally, Lesley Seymour, the editor of More Magazine, reached out to me and said Judy, “Were going to be doing an article on Wantrepreneurs to Entrepreneurs, could you share some ideas or some contacts?” I very quickly introduced her to Katty Kay who is the author of a wonderful book on self confidence in women, “The Self-Confidence Code. I introduced her to Jon Medved, who arguably is the number one VC guy in Israel. Just two or three connections, she called me and went “I’m just amazed!” It’s because I have these strategic relationships across some different sectors that can be very valuable. Regardless of the problem, I can connect people.
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