Just like the human body, there are tons of veins in the business world. Each vein symbolizes a small group of people and all of these groups can be eventually be tracked back to one main source, similar to a human heart. The more veins you tap into, the quicker you will get to the heart, which in the business world symbolizes power and money.
For example, 2 years ago I noticed that TechCrunch was not optimized for search engines. I decided to email Michael Arrington, on how he could make TechCrunch search engine friendly. For a few months he didn’t respond, but sooner or later he did.
Once Michael responded to me, he asked me how much it would cost for my help and I told him that I would do it for free. Within 2 weeks I doubled his search traffic and he was pleased. He then asked me if there was anything he could do for me and I told him that if he knew anyone that needed marketing help, it would be great if he mentioned my name.
Within minutes Michael emailed a few of his friends that ran Venture Capital funds and told them how I doubled his search traffic. But instead of his friends contacting me, they mass emailed all of the companies they funded, telling them to hire me. This led me to build relationships with many of the people insides Michael’s network, which has done wonders for my business.
So how can you tap into a vein?
- Network, network, network – the more time you spend being social, the more people you will meet. Your goal shouldn’t be to meet as many people as possible, but you want to get to know a few key individuals. You can do this through sending emails, attending conferences, commenting on someone’s blog, or just by joining a social network.
- Give FREE advice – the more advice you give the people you meet, the more likely they’ll introduce you to others in their network. Keep in mind that the advice you give can’t be useless, it should be valuable; so valuable that they want more.
- Don’t ask and you will receive – once you show value to one person, he or she will naturally introduce you to others that can benefit from your advice. Just be patient because it can take months if not years before you penetrate their network.
Hopefully this encourages you to start tapping into some veins.
PS: Try and stay away from the needles. 
Look over my shoulder while I share: 
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Neil,
Super content. Thanks for sharing this.
We all want to be more successful. Following those tips will not make it happen today. If followed they are almost certain to ensure long term success.
Posted a link to this on Twitter. Hope it brings you a little more traffic [and RSS subscribers].
Keep up the fine work.
ATB,
David
Thanks for the twit!
Great advice Neil. By the way, tap and tapped…not tape like duct tape.
LOL. Didn’t see that one… will fix it.
It has been a while since I last visited q.s!
Very nice entry.
Thanks for coming back. I need to get back in the swing of posting on a regular basis.
Nice strategy Neil. I’ve used kinda similar strategy in content writing and have seen some success so far.
By the way Michael took ” few months ” to reply to your email ? Wow ! In the end he replied, that in itself was cool.
Can’t blame him, he probably gets 1000s of emails a day. But none-the-less, it was cool that he responded.
Good free advice Neil. Maybe I’ll introduce you to my network soon.
And maybe I will introduce you to my network.
Great Advice! I think the free advice idea is pretty brilliant.
Good stuff…
~Jonathan
Free advice is probably one of the main things that has lead me to be some what successful. So many people appreciate free advice and it can do wonders for you. You just can’t expect people to return the favor right away; sometimes good things take a while.
Sometimes one of the good points of giving free advice, according to Jim Rohn is “when you try hard to make something clear to someone else, you end up making it clearer to yourself”,
. So, when we give good advice, we learn much more in the process too.
No problem. Hopefully you are learning from my mistakes as well.
Those are great points. Thanks!
I hope to see a lot more posts from you more often.
you know neil you are just doing nothing by discussing things here that really have helped you out in life. You know it’s not all about that , let’s talk about your negative side like say when u really wanted to do something and you were not able to do something , i had been reading your posts since day 1 and i felt good but then i feel discussing abt your goood times really doesn’t matter anymore, becauase people i guess might think they need something that really inspires you but i would say we really something really need to know abt people that are successful but something that is really undiscloised abt u , like abt ur failures, no issues u are a success abt ur 6 figure income, it’s a big deal for a lot of people , but i would say it’s really isn’t that tough to get thru that , moreover talking shit abt how u got there isn’t that worth if you don’t talk abt what really stopped you abt how getting there. i was a fan of you for sometime, but i feel you just have a habit of spending time of talking about yourself and about searching people who really doesn’t feel we should search a lot before opting someone , so i would say start from zero about you negatives rather that just baising yourself into vertain positive conditinos where you won , because normally people won’t be winning at those …
Neil, appreciate your input. I will try and blog more about my failures and what I learned. I have been trying to incorporate my failures and experiences into my posts, but I guess I haven’t been doing a great job.
Once again, thanks for the advice and I will try and improve my blog posts.
I like the feature that you can download Youtube videos from TechCrunch. Anyway I have a question from you Neil?
My friend has a very good blog that is probably in the top 10 in Mongolia. When he started of he used to have Mongolian and Foreign new songs/cd’s/music video’s and warez on his blog. Although its illegal many people do it. How do you feel about getting more traffic through illegal content?
This may sound bad, but I am for it. I watch tons of pirated movies and feel that pirated content is an easy way to boost traffic numbers.
The thing is, do it if it is related to your blog. You don’t want to have pirated music on a blog about “web 2.0″.
Its interesting how you built a successful relationship with a key individual, the term I use for people like Arrington is “center of influence” but your right, I’ve seen some people networking and having extensive lists of people in their LinkedIn that they never talk to or build a relationship with. Its more then just meeting with someone its building trust and developing the relationship into a fruitful one, which takes time. And yes, you are going to have to give your advice away for free to build a reputation that will build significant cash flow in the future.
This is a great article. Networking is easier on the net … commenting on others’ blogs and such. It is harder to do in person. In business situations where I have a “purpose” I do tend to mingle more. Social situations are harder for me.
Just try putting yourself out there a bit more and I think it will get easier. Once you start networking with more people online, it should also help with your confidence when you network offline.
Baby steps.
It’s funny how marketing for other people is a lot easier than marketing for yourself. When someone else is the main focus you’ll do just about anything to get attention, but when its you…you think twice about every small move.
I always love advice to network, network, network! I am a firm believer that most of the big deals in history have gone down over a couple of cold beers.
Any type of atmosphere that is non-work related usually work best because it helps you build a relationship with the other person. Whether it is beers or just a meal, anything is better than a conference room setting.
Hmmm, that’s a very important question – “how many veins have I taped into”. That simply shows the awesome power of networking. I like the idea you used with Michael Arrington – free help. Many would have asked for a lot of money and probably lose out in the end. You did it for him for free and he wanted to help you out in return – good Karma, I’d say. Good to hear how it ended up so sweetly… with you smiling to the bank at the end of the day,
The thing with Michael was that he was willing to pay me. Helping him out for free has helped me out in many more ways then I could have imagined.
The Michael Arrington example is very powerful. Not only would advertising to those businesses the VC group mailed have been very expensive and labour intensive (if that path was taken), saving you money, the credibility of the direct referrals instead no doubt worked wonders on the “conversion” factor.
Yea, it worked really well for me. I just have to tap into more veins like that one.
I see the analogy, but do you refer only to networking ‘veins’ or are there other kind? I mean, what are other methods you use for growing your business?
A good product or service is the main way. Without that, no one will want to give you money.
Love this post – I can definitely see how this is the Best Piece of Advice I Ever Got: By Neil Patel. It took me 1.5 years to realize the importance of relationships – with the RIGHT people – and the necessity to add value without “keeping score.” Thanks for helping others hopefully save some time!
Kayvan Mott
Right, because you can honestly get into relationships with various people, but the higher quality ones are going to be the ones that take you some where.
That is what is all about Multupile streams of inncome. It is funny how many Blogers are not networkers, what I mean is they have there own domain and then don’t really interact on other peoples blogs or areas.
That’s why 99% of the blogs out there end up remaining poorly maintained and fall to the ground. It’s all about consistency.
Oh My God !
I think we have MAN network system in our self of Veins.
Probably lol.