Six degrees of separation - (the 29%)

You’ve heard the term but what does it really mean?

It comes from a social experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 70’s and it’s objective was to see how many people would need to “touch” a letter to get it from one person in the mid west to a complete stranger in Boston.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_world_phenomenon


The rules were you couldn’t call them direct and you had to send it a person who you personally knew who might be able to move the process forward. On average it took around six contacts to achieve that. Most people who are very social and especially salespeople think that they are only a few contacts away from making “it” all happen.

But it is a myth

Because only 29% actually got the letter through to their intended target – the rest failed.

The best ones in the survey who achieved it did it in 2-3 attempts and the weaker 8-10 connections.

With the average path length being 5.5 which got rounded up to 6, hence the term “six degrees of separation”.

Interesting story but what does that mean to you?

Think for a moment about your connections and what you need to grow your business.
How well connected are you?
And what about your Sales Team?

Can they get you in front of the customers who want and need your product?

Are you/they in the 29% who can connect to whoever they need to in order to get the job done?
Or are they in the 71% who couldn’t deliver?

What is your Social Networking strategy and what are you now doing differently to improve your “network” and your projects results?