The Freelance Bible Toolkit | Part 3: Networks

Your network is your single most important asset when looking for work and you should never underestimate its value.

The anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggests that there is a limit to the number of people with whom anyone can maintain a close relationship. It’s now known as Dunbar’s number, and it proposes that humans can comfortably maintain only about 150 stable relationships.
He defines these as people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a café or bar. Let’s assume you have 150 people in your network and each person in your network has 150 in theirs.
This means that there are 22,500 (150 × 150) people at one degree of separation from you. That’s a lot of people who could potentially be your customers.
And the more established you are, the more likely your network will have customers (or potential customers) in it.
As you can see, even if you are starting out and feel like you have a small personal network, the reality is that it is bigger than you think. The trick is to know how to extract the maximum value from it.
Your personal network comprises your friends and family, colleagues from courses you’ve been on, people you’ve worked alongside as a co-worker, client or supplier – in fact, more or less anyone you’ve had a good working or personal relationship with, past or present.
Alongside listing who is in your network it’s helpful to categorise them in terms of what role they might fulfil within your network.
- Potential clients - those who could offer you work directly
- Sponsors - those who talk about you when you aren’t in the room (my favourite people!)
- Mentors - those who are a few steps ahead of you in your industry who can offer support and guidance, plus they may be able to refer work or collaborate
- Introducers - these people are the remainder of your network, and they are very important as they too have a network that they can introduce you to.
Let's say you have 100 introducers. If each of them has 2 people they think would be useful for you to meet, that’s 200 new work opportunities to follow up. Looking at your networks in this way demonstrates the potential for you to grow your networks.