The full program

This is an audio program. Listen and/or download it here:

A few lessons from this program

If you want to know the value of having a good network, take a look at what it’s done for Peter Pham’s new company, BillShrink:

• Networking helped him find a co-founder who is a former venture capitalist.
• Networking helped him land a top creative director without having to pay a recruiting fee.
• Networking helped him get an adviser who successfully sold a startup in the industry Peter wants to dominate.
• Networking helped him get his business funded.

Here are 5 of the steps he took to become a networking superstar. (Listen to the full interview for more.)

Go where they are – To get hooked into the web startup community, Peter went to tech events. He met his co-founder at the very first event he went to, the TechCrunch party in Michael Arrington’s house.

Once isn’t enough – Even the shiest networker can start building contacts by consistenly going to similar events. People start to recognize you and relationships naturally develop.

Everyone knows the host – After going as a guest to a few events, Peter switched roles and started hosting his own dinners. When you’re a guest, you get to meet a few people at an event, but the host gets to know everyone.

Tap their lists – To broaden his guest list, he co-hosted his dinners with two other connections: Mike Jones, CEO of userplane and Keith Richman, CEO of Break.com

Watch it grow – Word started to spread about his small dinners and people started asking for invitations. So Peter and his co-hosts created bigger events. The most recent one had over 150 guests. There’s even a web site, now betasouth.org. It’s a “.org” because the goal to make connections, not profits.

What are your networking tip? Add them to the comments.