By building on your own contacts, and the successive levels of your contacts' contacts, you can increase the number of people whom you can contact.

If your reason for wanting to connect with strangers is to get free help, you will probably be wasting your time.

On the other hand, if the connection will benefit both you and the stranger, you willincrease your chances of a successful connection.

The first step in contacting a stranger is learning as much as you can about him or her, much as you would in researching a potentially ideal client.

Regardless of how generous and giving the stranger may appear, most people prefer connections that will benefit both parties.

The best of these mutual beneficial connections offer both parties the opportunity to improve their lives in one way or another.

·     How can the connection benefit the stranger?

·     How can it benefit you?

Contacting People Whose Names You Know

These are people whose names come up in social media discussions, public presentations online or offline, or in private conversations. Once you have some one's name, with some research, you can locate a point of contact.

When you have learned about someone on a social media application, connecting with this person is about as easy as it gets.

In most cases, whenever someone posts anything on social media, there is a link that make it possible to contact this person. If there is no link, search the application for his or her profile, which will include contact information.

Conversations at meetings of business groups invariably include references to people who are doing notable things.

Although you do not know these people, other people involved in the conversation probably do know them. When you hear the name of a potentially helpful stranger, make a mental note of the name.

After the conversation, ask the person who mentioned the name for a referral.

If you can't arrange a referral, do some research to find appropriate contact information.

Contacting People Whose Names You Do Not Know

In the business world, there are millions of people who can help you whose names you do not know. You will meet some of these people in the normal course of building and developing your business.

There are, however many more helpful but unidentified people who have specific, and often unique, combinations of skills, knowledge and experience. You are likely to find these individuals helpful, if you can find out who they are.

In today's Information Age, there is more information about more topics than ever before.

It is reasonable to expect that if individuals have unique and specific knowledge about a particular topic, somewhere there will be some reference to these people.

The reference could be in conventional publications such as books and periodicals or it could be posted somewhere on the Internet.

Just because you and your contacts do not know someone who can help you, it does not mean that person does not exist.

 It just means that you must work a little harder to identify your helpful stranger.

If you are to continue developing your network of contacts, you will be required to identify and initiate contact with potentially helpful strangers.

This is not an impossible task or it an unpleasant one. As you begin to contact strangers you will find that they can be just as co-operative and helpful as people whom you know well.

Don't write them off just because you do not know them...yet.To learn more about contacting strangers see