Networking Reach

Doubling your contacts inside one industry raises your reach by 22%

Second-degree reach is usually quoted as contacts multiplied by their connections, which assumes none of them know each other. Inside a single industry in a single city they overwhelmingly do. Across a pool of 5,000 relevant people, going from 50 contacts to 100 raises unique reach from 3,885 to 4,751 — a factor of 1.22, not 2.

How it works

• Estimates how many distinct people your network actually reaches at second degree.
• Accounts for overlap, which is the difference between the quoted number and the real one.
• Shows where adding contacts stops adding reach, so effort can move somewhere it still pays.

naive reach = contacts × connections each

unique reach ≈ pool × (1 − (1 − 1 ÷ pool)^introductions)

introductions = contacts × connections each
pool = the number of relevant people who exist at all

Worked example

Contacts averaging 150 connections each, in a broad market and in one industry in one city.

1. pool 50,000 · 50 contacts → 7,500 introductions, 6,965 unique (7% overlap)
2. pool 50,000 · 200 contacts → 30,000 introductions, 22,560 unique (25% overlap)
3. pool 5,000 · 50 contacts → 7,500 introductions, 3,885 unique (48% overlap)
4. pool 5,000 · 100 contacts → 15,000 introductions, 4,751 unique (68% overlap)
5. pool 5,000 · 200 contacts → 30,000 introductions, 4,988 unique (83% overlap)

In the narrow pool, 200 contacts reach 99.8% of everyone who exists — the network is saturated and the 201st contact reaches nobody new. The same 200 contacts in the broad market still have three quarters of the pool ahead of them.

Reading the result

• This treats connections as randomly drawn, which is generous. Real networks cluster far harder than chance: people in the same industry attend the same events and work at the same handful of firms, so actual overlap is worse than these figures and saturation arrives sooner.
• The lever is the pool, not the count. Once you are saturating one industry, a single contact in an adjacent field adds more genuinely new reach than fifty more in the same one — which is the arithmetic behind advice to cultivate weak ties outside your immediate circle.
• Reach is not the same as usefulness. Being two steps from someone means an introduction is possible, not that it will happen or help. A small network where introductions are actually made outperforms a large one where they are not.
• The pool figure is the hardest input and the one that changes the answer most. Define it as people who could plausibly hire you or refer you, not everyone in the profession — narrowing it realistically usually reveals saturation much earlier than expected.

Common questions

Why does adding contacts stop helping?

Because new contacts increasingly know people you can already reach. In a pool of 5,000, the first 50 contacts reach 3,885 people and the next 50 add only 866. Past that the network is mostly re-introducing you to itself.

How do I actually extend my reach?

Add contacts in a different pool rather than more in the same one. Someone in an adjacent industry, another city or a different function brings connections that overlap little with what you have, and a handful of those beat dozens of contacts inside a circle you have already saturated.