Who knows you?

Grant Leboff: Warren, one of the points you make, early on in the book, is you say it's not about who you know, but who knows you - which certainly resonated. So maybe expand a bit more about that? Warren Cass: In this age of social media, where it's very easy to go out and connect with huge volumes of people, that's - in my opinion - much more of a vanity exercise. You know the old adage about quantity versus quality. And I would argue that maybe there's a place for both strategies but, unless you're developing the relationship and becoming known by the people that you're talking to, it's kind of a pointless exercise. It's not just about who knows you, because obviously they have to know you in order to have any kind of element of trust and you would need to have trust in order to be referable. But it's also about staying front of mind. So by having regular contact with the people that you really do want to influence, you remain front of mind. So should an opportunity come up you're the one I think about. If you let a relationship lie for even just six months, you're forgotten and the next person that comes in with your particular specialism is the person that's front of mind. So it's about being known, it's about having that depth of relationship but it's also having that regular contact. Grant Leboff: And you talk about building your network and there is that debate you see online all the time about quality versus quantity. So in terms of strategies for building a network, what do you think is key? Warren Cass: Well funny enough I think there are different strategies for different stages of career. So when you start your career or start your business, quantity is important because how do you know what quality is? But there will come a time where you're running a business employing 100 staff and incredibly busy and the last thing on your mind is sitting on LinkedIn for a couple of hours a day. And and certainly what you're not doing is accepting every coffee invitation that comes through your door. So of course, different times in your career both strategies have their place, but if you're going to go down the quantity route then just stay focused on quantity. So, for example, if you're a public speaker, then maybe the people that you connect with are conference and event organisers or speaking bureaus, but you'd be focused on that approach. And by all means do the quantity because a percentage will engage with, you have a conversation and build quality within those relationships. Grant Leboff: And that's clear isn't it, because that's a that's a marketing discipline as well, of course, but understanding who your audience should be in the first place. So you would say if you are a speaker, go to event organisers. But having a key idea about the segments of the market with whom it would be good to connect with and talk to, do you see people being that clinical? Warren Cass: No definitely not. So for the vast majority of small businesses that we have conversations with, they'd use 'scatter gun' approach and hope serendipity is kind to them, which is very rarely a good strategy. You know you might have multiple audiences that you deal with with your business but the key thing is to have a very focused specific way of speaking to them individually rather than thinking that one marketing message will reach all. We'll talk to all. There may be small changes to the spoken word in this transcript in order make it more readable.