9
The Law of Familiarity
“In politics, familiarity doesn’t breed contempt. It breeds votes.”
—Paul Lazarsfeld, sociologist
The first time I heard about Mark, I was in desperate need of a consultant who could design a corporate training program for a rush project set to launch in less than two weeks. I had a new business and was working on a project for only my second client, and I needed help pulling it together, fast. I put out feelers and all roads led to Mark. After the two of us talked a few times to get acquainted and discuss the project, I hired his firm for the assignment. I also joined his e-mail list and began getting his weekly messages that contained inspiring quotes and ideas for staying motivated.
Over the coming months we had little direct contact, yet it seemed that whenever I met someone in my new field and we played the name game, Mark’s name came up. Everyone seemed to know him.
More than a year after our initial introduction, and out of the blue, I received a congratulatory e-mail from Mark. I had been quoted in the New York Times and he had seen it. I was really excited to receive the e-mail, and appreciated his effort to reach out to me. Months later, after my business started to gather momentum, one of my clients, wanting to expand its coaching platform, asked me to bring even more consultants on board. Mark’s name immediately popped into mind, and he was the first person I introduced to the client.
Mark and I have continued to stay on one another’s radar screens over the years. When we were both writing book proposals, we touched base and compared notes. Every once in a while I receive an e-mail from him, announcing an appearance on NPR or CNN.
Although our direct contact is infrequent, Mark is never too far from my mind. He has managed to get his name out there in so many effective ways that it keeps coming up with the kind of frequency that instills familiarity and credibility.
Early in my career, I was trying to get a foot in the door at a major bank. I met an employee there named Roberto, who passed along the name and contact information of the training-department head, Kristi, and said I should use his name when I reached out to her. I did so, but got no response. A friend and former coworker was also working at the bank, and several months earlier had offered to pass along my name if I ever wanted him to. I decided that the time had come to take him up on his offer. He e-introduced Kristi and me, and this time I heard back from her almost immediately. She said, “I have been hearing your name all over the place.” Apparently my name also came up in an HR forum that she was a part of. It wasn’t until she’d heard my name from multiple sources that she e-mailed me back.
I believe it was only because my name was mentioned several times that Kristi started to build some trust in me. This is a regularly occurring phenomenon. “Oh, I’ve heard of her before,” goes the thinking, “she must be good.” The more that people hear from you or about you, the more they will develop feelings of trust in you, and the more their comfort with you will grow. Creating mental and physical familiarity enhances likability, and it’s important to develop this quality whether you are in or out of sight of the other person.
People Like Who and What They Know
I was at a conference once and noticed a man whose name tag identified him as being with a company that sounded very familiar to me. I quickly searched the company name on my BlackBerry to jog my memory. Then I went up to the man to introduce myself, mentioning the name of the partner I knew at his firm (the law of similarity on my side). He seemed only lukewarm to my efforts, so after a brief conversation I didn’t push it further. I sent him a follow-up e-mail after the event and got a brief reply.
About six weeks later we ended up at another conference together, and this time we were introduced by a mutual friend. He was a bit friendlier than he’d been when we first met, and he remembered our earlier encounter, but he still maintained his distance and didn’t reciprocate my effort to deepen the connection. Over the next few months our paths continued to cross, and each time we ran into one another he’d be a bit warmer. By the time we ended up speaking on the same panel a year later, he was all smiles. It was the law of familiarity in action: People feel comfortable with who and what they know.
The man took a long time to let his relaxed, warm side come through. It’s not uncommon for people to warm up to new acquaintances in stages, building that warmth of engagement over time. At first, I was an unknown entity. And even though we had a common friend, he needed more of a connection for there to be trust and comfort between us. People tend to be most comfortable with the people and things they are familiar with.
Advertising executives bank on this concept all the time. The more that consumers hear about a brand, the more comfortable they become with it, the more they trust it, and the more validity the brand has. Think about Super Bowl commercials: Why are advertisers willing to pay a million dollars to run a spot during the show? The answer is that so many viewers will be watching the Super Bowl and the commercials generate so much postshow buzz that even the names of companies with mediocre commercials will be mentioned again and again, increasing familiarity.
There is, of course, a fine line between keeping your name in people’s minds by building positive associations, and barraging them to such an extent that they tune you out. The key is to build familiarity in an authentic way. Authenticity, as we’ve seen, applies across the board with likability. Reach out in the spirit of connection, not in a narcissistic attempt at blatant self-promotion.
Remember Me?
As always, the laws of likability build on one another. After you have already fostered connections and initiated familiarity with someone during an interaction, you can continue to develop that familiarity when the encounter is over. Once you’ve met and decided that you like a person, and established a great mood memory, that’s precisely the time you want to stay in touch and sustain the conversation.
There are obvious instances where it’s clear that we can and should follow up. Even more critical, though, is to increase our frequency of reaching out. When we regularly extend ourselves, in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons, we allow connections to continue unfolding, which strengthens familiarity and likability. Each time you reach out to another person, employ language that fosters positive mood memory; even stating something as simple as “we” in your follow-up reinforces the connection.
Congratulations
Sending a note of congratulations or well wishes is a simple and unobtrusive way to stay in someone’s mind, increase positive feelings, and express your interest in maintaining a connection. The topic you mention is less important than the real message you are sending, which is, “I was listening and I am thinking about you.”
To find your topic, think back to your conversation. What did you learn about the person? What were you talking about? Your follow-up needs to show that you were paying attention to what the person was saying and picked up on significant experiences or milestones that the person was sharing. You want to demonstrate that you not only heard but also listened to what was being said.
Here is just a short list of some of the things I may learn about someone during a conversation and that could become part of my follow-up communications later:
• Upcoming work event, client meeting, training, conference, or workshop
• Alma mater or favorite sports team’s recent game or news-worthy event
• Upcoming vacation destination or staycation plans
• Battling an illness/aiding a sick parent, spouse, friend, or child
• New baby arrived or on the way; announcement of whether it’s a boy or a girl
• The person’s own birthday or child’s birthday; plans to attend or throw a birthday party
If you tend to be fuzzy on the details after talking with someone new, do what I do immediately after walking away from a new acquaintance: Jot down notes. I carry a pen with me at all times so that I can flip over a business card and write down a few comments about how I met the person, what we talked about, and any particular information I may have learned that I want to remember. This strategy can be especially useful when you’re attending a networking event or a conference and you may leave with a pile of cards in your pocket (and after having had a few cocktails that blur your memory).
Sometimes I’ll even make a note of what a person looked like to help me with recall, though an excellent Outlook search tool called Xobni (“inbox” spelled backward) has helped me all but eliminate the need to do this, since it displays photos of my e-mail contacts. There are all sorts of electronic resources that can help you keep up with people and determine the right times to reach out with a congratulatory note. And these notes don’t have to be specifically about the person: They might be in reference to news about the person’s company closing a major deal, acquiring an interesting client, or bringing a new CEO on board.
Don’t worry that the topic you settle on might be unrelated to your common interest, or even if it refers to a small detail that was part of a much larger conversation. Following up with a congratulatory message is a simple way to show other people that you were thinking of them, and it increases familiarity and the positive mood memory associated with your shared connection. Not long ago I received an e-mail from a former student, congratulating me on a mention she’d seen of me in Real Simple magazine. It was an unexpected forum for us to reconnect through, but it was great to hear from her and be back in touch, and I was glad to see that she was putting the law of familiarity into action.
Social Networking
The Internet has made creating familiarity with someone infinitely easier. Social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are great resources for staying in touch in numerous ways. Sending an invitation to connect through one of these sites is an excellent way to contact a new associate without having to find a reason for the interaction. You can time the invitation for immediately after your initial meeting, or wait a few weeks and send it as a way to touch base.
Different people use the various sites in different ways. For example, many people prefer to use Facebook for personal relationships and LinkedIn for business associations. Find the approach that feels natural for you, and build your connections to increase your familiarity.
Facebook is a pure social networking site with no other agenda than to provide a forum for people to connect and be friends. It is an amazing vehicle for reconnecting with old acquaintances, rekindling forgotten friendships, and helping to establish new connections. And its reach is phenomenal. According to 2010 statistics, almost 42 percent of the entire U.S. population has a Facebook account,1 and weekly tracking figures reveal that traffic to Face-book often outstrips traffic to Google.2
Each user’s profile includes such information as personal interests, hobbies, birthday, relationship status, and photos, so Facebook is a great venue for discovering further points of similarity with someone.
It’s also an excellent tool for staying in someone’s mind in a friendly, unobtrusive way. You can respond to other people’s status updates, joining in on whatever conversation has been sparked, and you can post messages directly to people’s profile pages, or “walls.” You can use your own status updates to generate conversations, too. Sharing a link to a funny article, asking for advice about a particular problem, making a comment about current events—these are all common ways that people initiate back-and-forths with their connections and maintain a presence on Facebook. The key, of course, is not to post too much or too often: You want to use the tool to create dialogues with your Facebook friends, not subject them to your running monologue.
You can also utilize the chat feature, essentially Facebook’s instant messaging system. Ping people with a quick “Hello!” when you are both logged in at the same time. It’s warm and friendly but simple, and it doesn’t impose. In addition to connecting with acquaintances and friends, you can join groups and networks that help people to connect around a particular event, shared passion, or past affiliation. A reunion for the summer camp I attended as a child was organized through the camp’s Facebook page. If not for Facebook I never would have reconnected with most of the people I saw at the event, and yet now I’m socializing and working with several of them.
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site for making professional connections. The information listed in a LinkedIn profile is intended strictly for professional use, and you have full control over all the content that relates to you. You can share information about the work you are doing and upcoming events you are attending or hosting, join or create networking groups, provide and receive professional references, and expand your network through “warm” introductions, or e-connections made through a mutual contact.
According to its website, as of January 2011, LinkedIn had more than 90 million registered users across more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. There is an immediate level of trust and connection conveyed with LinkedIn, since the site uses a “gated access” approach; that is, requesting a network connection with someone requires a preexisting relationship or shared contact. I rarely get LinkedIn requests from random people, and I never get spammed by it.
The simple act of updating your LinkedIn profile can keep your name in front of people, since this activity appears in the weekly updates they receive. I always read the weekly notifications e-mail I get from LinkedIn. It lets me know quickly and easily which members of my network have been active on the site, and how. What I do next depends on what I’ve learned.
Status Updates. I respond to these notices as I would to a post on Facebook; in other words, I reply only if I have something to say about what’s been posted. If a connection is sharing a notice about an upcoming event, I may wish him luck or ask for more information about it.
New Connections. I check them out to see if anyone in my network has connected with someone I know. If I know the people but am not yet connected to them, I may send a connection request. And if I’m surprised by the connection between two people I know, I may e-mail them both to find out how they’re associated, thus strengthening the circles of connection and creating opportunities to share information.
People Joining Groups. These notifications are my way of finding out about groups I may want to join. If one of my connections has joined a group that sounds intriguing, I may e-mail the person to see if she is finding the group useful.
Answering or Asking a Question. As a LinkedIn user, you can reply to the discussion forums when there is an existing conversation you want to weigh in on. You can also initiate a forum discussion when you have something you want to query your connections about.
New Job Positions. When I see that a connection has a new job title, I always send a congratulatory e-mail. It’s a way to inquire about the new position and to find out what someone has been up to. People usually love to share their stories. Let the law of curiosity take over, and reach out with an inquiry.
Twitter is sometimes described as the short message service (SMS) of the Internet because the site lets people communicate with micro-messages of 140 characters or fewer. According to the Twitter website, as of March 2011, there were more than 175 million Twitter users, and more than 95 million tweets (i.e., Twitter messages) were issued each day.
One of the most interesting things about Twitter is that, while it’s possible to keep your Twitter network restricted so that you have to approve “followers” before they can see your tweets, the vast majority of people and companies using it keep their networks open, so you can follow anyone or anything, from Joe Schmo to JetBlue, and hear what they’re saying. National politicians, Fortune 500 CEOs, and top journalists are all among the ranks of active Twitter users, and by following them, you become part of their conversations.
Another benefit to the general open-door ethos of Twitter is that it can be a way to form new connections. As I was writing this chapter, I logged in to my Twitter account, posted a tweet, and within seconds received an e-mail that I had a new follower. Some people are even using Twitter to stage distinctly twenty-first-century get-togethers. Lance Armstrong, who has more than 2 million Twitter followers, created a scene in the summer of 2009 when he was in Scotland and tweeted, “Hey Glasgow, Scotland! I’m coming your way tomorrow. Who wants to go for a bike ride?” Hundreds of people showed up in response, and spent the day biking along with Armstrong and connecting with one another.
Twitter updates inform you of what the people in your network are doing, seeing, thinking, or reading. Many times a stream of tweets will be purely informational, but it’s also possible to turn them into a dialogue. Whenever Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, travels, he tweets questions about the destination he is visiting and gets hundreds of tweets back in response. He says it’s a great way to learn about a place from the local perspective and start a micro-conversation about it.
Although Twitter is particularly effective for people or companies with substantial followings, it can be useful even if you’re not a well-known personality. My friend Sean is a Lego artist and author. He tweets about upcoming times and locations of book signings, or an exhibition of one of his pieces, or if an article or video about his work has recently been posted. It’s his way of letting his followers keep up with what he’s doing and when he’s having special events, creating opportunities for connection and meeting up.
Regards
The three most effective things I do to stay in people’s minds are also the methods that feel the most natural and authentic, because they come from a genuine place: That is to say, they reflect the value I place on connections and building them. One of my methods is to introduce people I think should meet one another. I am the common link as these new relationships spark, and therefore I am front of mind. The second is to invite people to or inform them of upcoming events that they might find of interest. Even if none of us ends up attending the events, people will know that I was thinking of them, which will in turn prompt them to think of me.
The third thing I regularly do is to send my regards. It may seem trite to say, “Tell so and so I said hello,” but it is an easy thing to do, and can even be helpful to the person conveying the message. It provides a ready topic of conversation, and gives people a chance to leverage the law of similarity.
Get Out There
Hearing someone’s name mentioned again and again in positive contexts can build professional credibility and help establish comfortable rapport and ease. Creating familiarity doesn’t require scheduled meetings or planned conversations, either. It can be done without having actual face time or giving the impression that you are hounding someone. By simply following up on shared details and harnessing electronic resources, it is possible to steadily create familiarity and associate your name with appropriate ideas and events. Remember to pursue these strategies in ways that feel true and authentic to you, and that aren’t obtrusive or pushy. Don’t get in someone’s face, just be in their circle.