A Crow, half-dead with thirst, came upon a Pitcher which had once been full of water; but when the Crow put its beak into the mouth of the Pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it and that he could not reach far enough down to get at it.

He tried, and he tried, but at last, he had to give up in despair. Then a thought came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher.

At last, at last, he saw the water mount up near him, and after casting in a few more pebbles he was able to quench his thirst and save his life.

Little by little does the trick.

Mark* was getting frustrated. He had been working with our coaching group for a couple of weeks and didn't feel like he had made any progress. He’d made a list of his dormant ties who were mostly former classmates and people he has worked with. He’d started sending emails and LinkedIn messages following my advice to connect online, but build relationships offline in face to face or voice to voice conversations.

For all of his work, he felt like he wasn't getting any responses. He felt like his efforts were being wasted.

Then one week, everything changed.

During one of our calls, he shared a revelation that helped him get past his frustration and continue to make connections.

He told us, "Whenever I hesitate to send an email or a message to someone I want to connect with, I ask myself, 'What's the marginal cost of sending this?'"

His point was the cost to send an email or message was low. If the person ignored him, nothing was lost, but if a person connected with him, there could be a huge payoff. During the time he was in the group, Michael was looking for a job and had found some opportunities to start his own consulting business. He realized that instead of using networking to find a job, he was going to need to use it to find new clients.

Sending the first note to someone you want to connect with seems like such a small thing. It doesn't seem like it could possibly make a difference. The impact of the effort seems so low, but the accumulation of the notes and messages, which cost you little to send, can turn into a huge opportunity.

I tell my students once you have a list of dormant ties to reconnect with, the next step is to send them a simple message, "I thought of you today and realized we haven't spoken in a while. How have you been?"

Sometimes, your dormant ties won't respond to your message for weeks or even months. Don't get discouraged. People are busy. They have a lot of things going on. Ask yourself, "Have I ever let an email sit in my inbox for a while before responding?" But in a lot of cases, you will get a response. What then?

Your goal is to take the online email or LinkedIn message and turn it into a face to face or voice to voice conversation. Remember, you are trying to build a deep professional relationship. In order to do this, you need to actually talk to the other person. Having this conversation is the first step. If a face to face conversation isn't possible due to geography, schedules, or social distancing, then have a voice to voice conversation on phone or video call.

As with most of the other advice I give my students, this is a step where people tend to overthink it. They think this needs to be a formal conversation or have some type of agenda. I remind them, they are talking to someone they already know. They don't need to impress this person and they definitely don't need to give this person some sort of pitch. Instead, they need to have a conversation with a former colleague and catch up on what is going on in their lives.

Even with this guidance, my students commonly ask me, "What are we going to talk about?" My answer is if you don't know what to talk about, you can ask your connections about their favorite topic. How do you know what their favorite topic is?

Everyone in the world has the same favorite topic. It's the one thing they know the most about: themselves.

Your job in this conversation is easy: Ask a person about themselves and then listen to what they say. Don't interrupt or zone out or look at your phone. Really listen to what they say.

What have they been working on?
What have they been struggling with?
What or who do they wish they already knew?

The answers to these questions are going to be the key to developing your deep professional relationship and building your vibrant professional network. When you have one of these conversations, you are going to walk away feeling great looking forward to all the great opportunities that could come out of this connection.

You go your separate ways, promising to stay in touch and assuring yourselves you will look for ways to help one another.

A few days go by. You don't hear back from your new connection.

The one pebble you worked so hard to drop in your professional networking pitcher didn't really make a difference.

What now?

You stay focused on your goal of creating a vibrant professional network and keep sending emails to your other dormant ties. You make another connection. Another conversation takes place. You feel good about the discussion and look forward to developing a professional relationship with your connections.

A few days go by.

That second pebble didn't make a difference either.

In my experience coaching people about professional networking, this is where the frustration sets in. This is where people start thinking they are bad at networking. This is where people give up and stop trying to connect with people. They don't drop the first pebble because they don't think it's going to get them to the water.

In our fable, if the crow had stopped dropping pebble after pebble into the pitcher, he would have died of thirst.

In professional networking, if you stop making connections on a regular basis, your network will cease to exist.

It's tempting to give up after a few connections fail to deliver a new job opportunity or an introduction to someone you really want to meet, but if you stop after a few connections, not only have you halted any progress to grow your professional network, but you have also squandered the effort you put into the first few connections you made.

Each of those connections is part of building your professional network. The second one builds on the first. The third build one the second. Connection after connection builds until your professional networking pitchers is overflowing with opportunities.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear tells a story about the boiling point of water as a way to demonstrate that all of our efforts accumulate on themselves. If you add one degree of temperature to a pot of water at 200 degrees Fahrenheit, it's not going to boil. If you add another degree, it is also not going to boil. You have to add degree after degree of temperature (energy) until you get to 211 degrees F; however, at this point, the water is still not boiling. But if you add one more degree and the temperature reaches 212 degrees, the water boils. There is nothing special about that last degree of energy. It was all the other energy, added together, cumulatively, that raised the temperature to a boiling point.

In order for your network to grow, you need to add the first connection. While this connection may not be the source of come life-changing opportunity, you have to start with your first connection. Without the first connection, you don't get a second connection. With the second connection, you don't make a third connection. As you continue to connect, many of your existing connections will intersect and people you never expected will know each other.

A word of caution: sometimes people focus on trying to put all the pebbles into the pitcher all at once. They try to do a weekend sprint where they send out a whole bunch of emails or LinkedIn messages to their dormant ties. They try to have multiple networking conversations in one day. While this may be a necessity if you are looking for a job, it's not usually sustainable and not recommended. Usually, people who try to do this end up getting overwhelmed and frustrated and stop dropping any pebbles into their networking pitcher.

But you have to start with the first pebble. You have to make the first connection. Don't worry about the next connection, just worry about getting the first connection into your networking pitcher. Once you drop that in by having a conversation with a connection, then find the second pebble to drop in the pitcher. No matter what, don't stop making connections and dropping pebbles into your pitcher. Keep going until your networking pitcher is overflowing with opportunities.

At some point, your networking pitcher will be too full of pebbles and you can't fit any more in. This is a good problem to have and one which you can control by focusing on quality over quantity in your professional relationships. We'll talk more about this in the chapter on the Hare who had many friends.

The pebbles are small steps you can take to grow your vibrant professional network.

The pitcher is our professional networking pitcher.

The water is the opportunity our network brings us.

We think that one connection won't do the job. And we are right. One connection isn't going to get us to the water.

We need the cumulative power of all the connections we make.

What pebbles can you drop into your pitcher today?

Pick a name from your list of dormant ties and send an initial email.
If a dormant tie has already responded, set up that face to face or voice to voice conversation.
If you have set up the conversation, listen to what the person has to say. Make a mental note of ways you could help them based on the conversation.

Do this once a day.

Every day.

As Mark told our coaching group, the cost of doing these small things is very low. There's no reason you shouldn't be dropping these pebbles into the pitcher.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

Winston Churchill

*Names changed to preserve anonymity

This post is one of the chapters in a book I am writing called, “Aesop’s Guide to Networking for Introverts. How to Build Your Professional Network Without Going To Events, Cold-Calling, or Sending Spammy Emails.”

I’m posting the chapters as I go and would love to get feedback or suggestions. Please leave your comments to tell me what I could do better!