Any of you who know me or have seen me speak know I always talk about your network and how important it is. But it’s not so much who you know, it’s who you know, who THEY know. Much of my success has been through connections and I love to connect people I think could have synergy in business. It’s relationship capital. Who can you connect and when the time comes, who can connect for you?

For years people have always referred to me as the female Kevin Bacon. (You know the Hollywood game about how every actor is somehow connected to Kevin Bacon.) They always said that through me everyone has the six degrees of separation and can connect. I always joked that the problem with that was that I had no connection to Kevin Bacon. All of that changed last week.

This year my paid speaking business has really exploded and I LOVE it! I’m working with speaker’s bureaus but at this point, I’m still finding some gigs myself through my team and my network. I thought I should go through my LinkedIn connections and see who I know who might have connections to meeting planners at events I’d like to speak at.

Of course with LinkedIn, many people have a lot of connections so there is a high probability that they don’t actually know that person. I found my dream conference to speak at and when I did a search of that organization’s meeting planner, I saw she was connected to someone I know. I reached out to my friend to see if they did in fact know one another and of course asked how she was doing and what she was up to.

Not only did she know my dream meeting planner to meet. Would you believe, it’s her roommate? I can’t make this up. She was also excited to tell me that through her networking and connections, she just took a job as President of Kevin Bacon’s charity, SixDegrees.org. So there it is, my loop is closed. I am now connected to Kevin Bacon through just one step and it all happened by keeping my network open and staying in touch with people. And to top it all off, she was nice enough to connect me to the person (i.e. her roommate) who could possibly get me into speaking at my dream conference.

Lesson learned: Networking is vital in business. Stay connected with people. You just never know. Don’t sell yourself. Offer value. Be kind. Don’t be afraid to ask someone for help. But remember to do the same for someone else.

Want to learn more about networking, connecting, using LinkedIn for your business? Check out, www.SocialMediaandPR.com and check out our program.