How many "best friends" do you have? Social scientists say most people count just four friends with whom they can discuss very important matters, but the maximum possible number of such friends is around six. With rare exceptions, it's just not practical for anyone to maintain close, truly meaningful relationships with more than six people.
Super-successful people know this better than anyone. In the survey research I did for my book Business Brilliant, I found that the wealthier you are, the fewer "best business friends" you have. Specifically, when asked to count how many people they closely network with in order to source new business, the average number was 4.8 for millionaires who have a net worth over $30 million and 5.7 for millionaires who have a net worth below $10 million.
Ordinary middle-class people? They reported an average of 9 close contacts. That's right. The people at the lowest level of financial success counted the highest number of close networking contacts.
Ordinary middle-class people? They reported an average of 9 close contacts. That's right. The people at the lowest level of financial success counted the highest number of close networking contacts.
The reason is very simple. If you count nine people as very close, the odds are you're not really close to them at all, which means they won't be inclined to offer their close network connections with you. If, on the other hand, you are very close to six highly-connected people, as most super-successful people are, those six people will make their networks available to you, giving you potential access to 36 more people, as well as access to their networks, by which time your effective network numbers in the hundreds.
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