A router’s fundamental role is to look at data, figure out where it should be, and send it along an “optimal path” to where it belongs.
This is the point of networking between us humans. To make meaningful connections so problems can be solved, ideas can spread, businesses can be built, etc.
If routers route* relationship. Hard drives keep them for themselves.
Two big things get unlocked when the connections we have become the connections we share:
Making introductions is a blast. When I can make a connection between two people or two businesses who can help each other, it’s fun. Selfishly, watching new people meet and build a real bond makes me go “I helped build that.” I won’t lit, it’s a dopamine hit, even after when the intro is made and I step out of the conversation. There’s something new and hopefully fruitful in the world. The dopamine makes it easy to make more intros.
Do it enough and it all comes full circle. Like so many things, the more intros I make, the better router I become. And the better I get at putting two people together, the more it’s started happening back to me. I’ve even stepped way out of my comfort zone and started proactively asking people “Do you know anyone who…?” Quid pro quo is not a thing in routing connections. I don’t feel the need to make an intro to get an intro.
When I started my first marketing agency, I said yes to every request. We did every marketing thing anyone could ever want. It was a shitshow. SEO? No probs. Manage your Bing ads? Why not? Create a marketing strategy for a national-level fleet vehicle management company serving customers in the mining industry in Australia? Yeah, sure.
We did good work at that agency, but man it was hard.
It stopped being hard when I started saying no to the work we weren’t already good at. Instead we started connecting customers to the people who do certain work the best.
We focused on the strategy and surrounded ourselves with top notch operators. And a cool thing happened — we got more work from the network than from our own marketing and sales.
You probably already know this. It’s givers gain. It’s generosity sows the seeds of growth. Yadda yadda.
It works in Saas just like it worked in agency world. The more we understand what customers need and route them to the right people or products, the better off we do.
Happy weekend,
Peter
(460 / 500)
*Do you pronounce this like tree root /ruːt/ or more like sauerkraut /raʊt/? No matter how I say it out loud, I second guess myself.