Synopsis

A few years ago, Dr. Misner had a fundamental disagreement with a networking expert in Europe. This person believed that networking is a numbers game: that the quantity of people in your network matters more than the quality of people in your network.

Quantity is important, but networking is not so much a numbers game as a people puzzle, one that works by making connections between other people. You need to have a wide set of contacts, but your connections need to go deep. It’s not just who you know, but how well you know them. If you know your connections well enough to be able to call and ask for a favor–and get it–that is a powerful network. Quantity is good, but quality truly is king.

BNI works by building deep connections within a comparatively small group of people: the members of that chapter. Share your experiences with quality connections in the comments.

Brought to you by the Networking for Success Channel on YouTube.

Complete Transcript of Episode 519 –

Priscilla:

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast, brought to you by the Networking for Success Channel on YouTube, which features Dr. Ivan Miser and many other networking experts. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan, how are you and where are you?

Ivan:

I am at my home in Austin, Texas. I am in my library overlooking Lake Austin. It is a beautiful day.

Priscilla:

That sounds great.

Ivan:

So today I am going to talk about quantity versus quality. I have a story, I think that the listeners might be interested in. A few years ago, I had a really good conversation with a good friend who was really considered a networking expert in Europe. He did a lot of work with online networking or social networks.

During this conversation, we got into a fundamental disagreement on the subject of networking. He believed that networking was first and foremost a numbers game. He said the more people that you are connected to, the better your network. Now, at first, I went along with him. I agreed with him that the number of people in your network was in fact very important. I then said, though, that the only thing more important than the quantity of the people was the quality of the people in your network. Suddenly, our paths diverged. He said that the quality of the people in your network doesn’t make a difference and that it was a numbers game.

To this day, I steadfastly disagree with him. Networking isn’t a numbers game. It is more like a people puzzle. It is more about building relationships with the close people in your network. That means is is about finding ways to interconnect relationships you have to build a powerful personal network. Now, in order to do that, you actually have to have a fair number of relationships, so quantity is important. Don’t listen to this and say, “Yeah, Ivan says quantity isn’t important.”

Quantity is important but you have to go deep with many of those relationship and that is why I created an organization, BNI, where you could really go deep and build quality relationships within that sea of contacts that you have. So if your network is a mile wide and an inch deep, you will never be successful. Instead, your network needs to be wide and, in places, deep. That means you need to have a wide set of contacts, but some of those need to be connections that really go deep so that the quality of your network is just as important, if not more important, than the quantity of your network.

Again, this doesn’t mean that quantity isn’t important. It is important.