You will be able to sort the people you already know into a list of possible buyers and introducers.
Turn your network into a prospect list in two separate passes. First write down everyone you know without judging anyone. Then tag each person as a buyer, an introducer or neither.
A common reaction to "start with the people you know" is to scroll through your contacts and close the app. Either nobody looks like a buyer, or everybody does and approaching them feels awkward. Both reactions come from doing two jobs at once: listing people and judging them. Once you separate the two jobs, your network becomes something you can work through instead of something you avoid.
Open a spreadsheet and start pulling in names. Make no decisions yet. Take names from every one of these sources:
phone contacts LinkedIn connections email chat groups alumni groups from school, poly or university old colleagues from every job you have had your NS batch clubs your religious community your running group your condo or estate chat
Your aunt goes on the list. So do your old football kaki and the plumber from 2019 who is still in your phone (an invented example). Do not skip anyone because they seem unlikely. Most people who do this properly end up with a few hundred names, which is far more than they would have guessed.
You write first and judge later because your judgement while scrolling is unreliable. It is easy to scroll past a quiet former colleague who now manages three clinics, or your cousin's husband, who runs a logistics firm. Once every name is written down, you can judge them calmly against the ideal customer profile from lesson 1.4, "Write your ideal customer profile on one page".
On the second pass, give each name exactly one tag.
A buyer is someone who matches your ideal customer profile themselves. An introducer does not fit the profile but knows many people who do. Neither covers everyone else, which is usually most of the list, and that is fine. Tagging someone "neither" does not mean you lose touch with them. It only means you do not spend prospecting time on them.
Darren is an adviser. A former schoolmate of his who just had a baby is a buyer. His introducers include a friend who teaches antenatal classes and the HR manager at his previous company.
Mei is a bookkeeper who serves F&B businesses. One of her buyers is a friend from her old office who left to open two bubble tea outlets.
If you are unsure about someone, tag them on what you know today and move on. At this stage speed matters more than precision, and you will learn more once you start talking to people.
A buyer is one possible sale. An introducer is a doorway to many sales. An introducer who mentions you to one founder a month is worth more over a year than almost any single client. Introductions also arrive warm, because they come from someone the prospect already trusts.
Mei's best introducers turned out to be a sales rep for a point-of-sale system, a commercial property agent who leases shop units, and a former colleague now in a bank's business banking team. None of them would ever hire a bookkeeper, but each of them talks to F&B founders every week. They benefit as well. The POS rep looks good when Mei sorts out a client's messy books, and the property agent looks good when a new tenant's accounts are in order for the bank.
Introducers are often easier to talk to than buyers, because you are not asking them for money, only asking them to keep you in mind. Many of them like being the person who knows someone useful. While you sort, look hard for introducers among the people who sit next to your buyers in the chain: suppliers, landlords, accountants, HR managers, event organisers, and people who run communities your profile belongs to.
Network prospecting usually goes wrong in one of two ways. In the first, a friend who has not heard from you in two years gets a message that goes straight to a pitch, and feels used. In the second, the message is so vague that the person cannot tell what you do or who it is for.
Instead, tell people what you now do and who you help, and attach no request. Your first message should have no link, no offer and no "let me know if you know anyone". A message to an old colleague, Jun Wei, might read like this:
"Hi Jun Wei, it's been a while. I left the bank last year and now do bookkeeping for cafe and restaurant groups, mostly ones with a few outlets. How are things on your side?"
People remember a clear description of who you help, and those who know someone like that will often say so without being asked. Write each message for the person who will read it, and space your messages out over weeks. Twenty personal messages land better than a broadcast to two hundred.
Before you send anything that promotes what you sell to a Singapore phone number, read module 5. Knowing someone personally does not by itself take a marketing message outside the Do Not Call rules. Lesson 5.1 explains when a check is needed.
You do not need to tag your whole network today. Fifty names is enough to show you how many buyers and introducers you already know and which groups they tend to come from. The activity below asks you to go through the first fifty names from your phone and LinkedIn and tag each one.
Go through your phone contacts and LinkedIn connections, by export or by scrolling, and tag the first fifty names as buyer, introducer or neither.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).