Six degrees of connectivity, the Art of Networking.

I recently spoke to an entrepreneur and listened to her complain about her lack of a marketing network and that one of the major hurdles was the lack of contact person at a potential client. In her mind she was shut out of potential business by not having a contact person at the client who she could make initial contact with.

While this problem is not unique to her business and has been overcome by many marketing and sales professionals previously, this young lady was at a standstill. Not realising the power within her own network. After listening to her problem, I realised that she had no idea of the power held within the “Six Degree of Connectivity” theory. As the saying goes “It is not what you know but rather who, you know.”

My apologies to the authors and scientists who have spent countless hours possibly years researching and writing about this subject, I unfortunately will be butchering this theory and making it more applicable to my local entrepreneurial space.

The six degrees of separation or rather connectivity as I prefer to call it, is such an important social and personal trait that it is truly disturbing to see how few entrepreneurs are aware of its existence and its value to them.

As much as we would like to believe that the “Six Degrees of Connectivity” is an invention of our small and very connected 21^st century world sadly, that would not be true. The science behind this theory of everyone being connected by six other people, through a simplified friend-of-a-friend chain was first examined in the 1960’s. The U.S social psychologist Stanley Milgram used letters sent to friends of his test subject to reach a chosen target.

Even in the age before modern communication as we know it, Milgram found that the target could be reached by roughly six interactions. In theory the “Six Degrees of Connectivity” should be easier than ever with the speed and ease of modern communication and social media at our disposal, sadly this very benefit could also prove to be our greatest obstacle in this theory.

Modern decision makers are inundated with communication, our approach to them needs to very impressive in order to stand out, one of the things that would definitely make an impact on them would be the referral by a person in their circle of contacts. Nothing beats a personal introduction or a word-of-mouth advertisement.

So, after the required cup of coffee, I set about using her existing contacts and asking them if they had a name or a contact person she could approach. In a matter of minutes and roughly three messages someone provided not only a contact person but also spoke to their contact to enquire about the possibility of the young lady presenting her offering to their company.

In her case the “Six Degree of Connectivity” theory could be demonstrated rather easily, but it also got me thinking how many other entrepreneurs are facing the same struggle, with no one available to assist them in leveraging their own networks or charging them astronomical amounts of money, money that small businesses simply do not have to access this kind of network coaching.

One of the biggest expenses incurred by small businesses is marketing, yet it is one of the most important. When starting a small business cashflow and limiting expenses are two of the most important focus areas that need to be considered whenever decisions are made. One of the ways business owners can reduce and control their marketing spend is by leveraging their extended network.

The best way to do this is using the “Six Degree” theory. Not all entrepreneurs are great at networking but most of us have at least 200 contacts on our mobile phone and that is one of the quickest ways to get started. By simply putting your problem into the universe and being pretty specific about your aim, you can start to interact with possible “Degrees” in the chain of connectivity and bring yourself closer to your “target” person.

As a start-up business marketing and sales is of critical importance to the survival of your business, however with the cost of advertising even on social media this needs to be approached with extreme caution. While the need to be seen by potential clients is crucial the cost of it cannot be so high that it cripples the business.

The “Six Degree” theory allows entrepreneurs to contact many potential clients using the strength of the own network. It is technically social media advertising at a much lower cost and with a stronger introduction than a random advert forced upon someone. I personally, would much rather support a small business introduced to me by someone I know than a business seen online and recommended by a platform being paid to use my browsing data to feed me ads they think would interest me.

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