Our customer base is pretty evenly split (46% men, 42% women and the remainder companies).

It's the old preoccupation, questions from our male customers tend to center on the size of their network, those from women on techniques for deepening their relationships.

By way of example, here's a typical support request from "Mike":

"I've just downloaded your free trial of Cortege and was wondering how best to organize my network. I have 2400 close contacts and about 3200 others - what would you recommend?"

My immediate reaction was to reply:

"5600 contacts is not a network, it's a mailing list... What do you do, see each of your "close contacts" every six years or so?"

Needless to say, I didn't actually send this, but it was tempting...

Part of the blame for this preoccupation with size lies at the door of online business sites like Ecademy and LinkedIn, which encourage their members to add as many connections as possible in order to increase revenues.

With LinkedIn, the value of the site for individual members is directly "linked" to the number of connections you have. I know of one member with over two thousand connections, who simply sends invitations to three members (connections of his connections) every single day: "about two-thirds accept my invitation", he claims.

Aside from "working the system" on sites like these, are connections like this really part of your network? The answer is simple...

No they are not.

Research clearly demonstrates what most women seem to know intuitively: that a large network of weak links is far less valuable (in personal, career or economic terms) than a much smaller network of strong ones. Note that I'm referring to your own personal network here, not customers, mailing lists, etc. that you might employ in the course of your business (perfectly legitimately).

Or, to put it more simply, supposing your boss walked into your office one day and said:

"John, our marketing VP, will be leaving next month. Is there anyone you could recommend for the position?"

Would you really recommend someone you didn't know personally? Remember, it's your reputation on the line as much as the person you recommend.

Effective networking is about quality, not quantity.

In Mike's case, he'd be better off limiting the size of his network to 240 "close contacts", and spending the time he wastes trying to manage a large network into developing more meaningful relationships with a smaller one.

If he's not sure how to do this, he could always ask his wife.