During your career you’ve heard or read lots of advice on networking. And chances are you’ve picked up a subtle, underlying message: More is better. But this superficial view of networking just doesn’t work. There is a big difference between “networking” and actually building a network of deep, loyal relationships. 

Supernetworkers understand that all contacts are not equal in terms of their career impact. They segment—explicitly or intuitively—their network into two groups: the “critical few” and the many. And they adopt totally different tactics to stay in touch and manage them. 

Know who your “critical few” are, and cultivate them. 

Your critical few should include clients or customers, prospects, colleagues, personal mentors, collaborators—by which I mean other firms or individuals you may trade leads with and work with to serve a client—and so on. Plan to personally connect two or three times a year with each of the people on your list. Add value to them in different ways. I like to think about ideas and relevant content, network value (making a valuable introduction), personal help, and fun. 

Build your network before you need it. 

You have to invest in other people before you ask them for anything. Otherwise, you’ll be seen as a freeloader. Cultivate your relationships over time, the same way you would tend a garden. Then, when you do need help, you’ll find the people around you eager to lend a helping hand. 

Follow the person, not the position. 

Build relationships with smart, motivated, interesting, and ambitious people, even if they’re not in an important job right now. Follow them throughout their careers. Before you know it, you’ll know some very important, powerful individuals who can buy your products and services. 

Stretch yourself by building relationships with people quite different from you. 

Research shows that our natural tendency is to choose others to work with who are very similar to us. But the most creative teams, the teams that solve problems the fastest, are eclectic and combine people with very different backgrounds and personalities. 

Make them curious. 

When someone is curious, they reach toward you. They want to learn more. They want to take the next step. When you evoke curiosity, you create a gravitational pull that is irresistible. So tell people what they need to know, not everything you know. Give brief answers to questions. Hint at things. Don’t lecture a prospective customer for 10 minutes when they ask you to describe your firm. Develop contrarian or unusual perspectives. Be seen as someone who has refreshing points of view. Say the unexpected and surprise the other person. 

Know the other person’s agenda and help them accomplish it. 

When you know what the other person’s priorities, needs, or goals are, you can figure out how to help them. And that’s where the rubber meets the road in building both professional and personal relationships. If you don’t know their agenda, you’re shooting in the dark or relying on some nebulous concept of charisma. 

Every act of generosity creates a ripple. 

A collateral benefit of selfless generosity is that it draws others to you. It creates an attractive aura around you—even though that’s not the reason you do it. It is what characterizes the most influential people in history, individuals like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Andrew Carnegie, and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

As you read this you might be thinking: “Great. All my frenetic attempts at networking so far have been in vain!”  That’s not true, though. 

Just go through your contact list and ask yourself: Who will go out of their way to endorse me and introduce me to their network? Who will drop what they are doing and help me when I am in need? Who will tell others that they’ve never known someone as trustworthy and talented as me?

After asking yourself these questions, you may find that only five or ten people remain on your list. And that’s a great start: A handful of deep, loyal relationships is always better than hundreds of superficial contacts. Quality trumps quantity every time.