🐧 11 Relationship-Building Strategies For Portfolio Careerists

‍Today, in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 📊 A simple system to track and measure your relationship-building efforts
• 🎯 How to identify and connect with your ideal clients (with real examples)
• 🤝 11 proven strategies used by portfolio careerists to win leads and clients (that you can implement this week)

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FROM OUR OFFICE

🌱 Feeling Stuck in Growing Your Portfolio Career?

Do any of these resonate with you?

• You’re grinding at your 9-5 and struggling to grow your side hustle
• You’re feeling lost and unsure how to move the needle
• You’re feeling confused on how to leverage your strengths

In 2024 I started working with motivated tech professionals like you to build thriving portfolio careers.

Through 1:1 coaching, my clients gain the clarity they need to:

• Transform their side project into a sustainable income stream
• Design a portfolio career that aligns with their unique strengths
• Accelerate their growth to the next level

I'm currently accepting two more clients for the first half of 2025.

👉 Reply to this email if you'd like to explore working together. Let's chat about your goals and see if we're a good fit.

🤝 11 Relationship-Building Strategies For Portfolio Careerists (What’s Working)

Last year, I wrote a popular piece for tech job searchers on how to build relationships in new markets.

However, I realized portfolio careerists and business owners struggle with a similar challenge.

Lately, I’ve been hearing this in our cohort program.

In this newsletter, I share 11 relationship-building strategies for portfolio careerists—focusing on what’s working for me and others I know. 

Whether you’re a side hustler, independent consultant, or full-time business owner, relationships are the foundation for gaining leads and clients.

Here is what I have learned:

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1/ Define your business development goal

For a long time, I was missing this step (ironic, considering my growth background).

Now I have implemented a bi-weekly habit to setup a certain number of meetings.

This is helping me track my progress more clearly.

For example, let’s say you have a fractional CTO business.

Answer the following questions:

• How many clients do I want in a year?
• What is my close rate from an opportunity? (opportunity: discovery call or prospect who has expressed interest in your service)
• What is my meeting to opportunity conversion rate? (meeting: networking calls, catching up with a colleague, hosting an event, etc.)

Let’s say you want 2 fractional CTO clients in the next 6 months.

Here is how you might work backwards to your business development goal:

• 2 clients
• 50% close rate → 4 opportunities
• 25% meeting-to-opportunity rate → 16 meetings

This means you’ll need approximately 16 meetings to achieve your desired goal for the next 6 months.

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2/ Identify who you want to meet

This strategy boils down to defining a specific Ideal Client Profile.

For example, when I was doing tech career coaching I looked for:

• Tech professionals
• Ages 27-32
• Live in a tier 1 US city (e.g. San Francisco, New York)
• Feel stuck in their current job, wanted to change roles or companies

You can use a variety of attributes to define this profile. I typically like to use 3+ to narrow down the criteria.

Here are example attributes:

• Job title (e.g. product designer)
• Income/Revenue (e.g. US$100k-130k/year)
• Geo (e.g. Tier 1 cities in the US)
• Marital/kids status (e.g. not married/no kids)
• Gender (e.g. female)
• Age range (e.g. 27-32)
• Where they spent their time (e.g. Linkedin, deign Slack communities)
• Pain point (e.g. struggling with business & leadership skills)

Or for B2B services you might look at:

• Company size (e.g. 100-500 employees)
• Industry / type of business (e.g. B2B SaaS, Healthtech, etc.)
• Price point (e.g. sells $10k+ ACV contracts)

Then once you this ICP narrowed down, identify where they spend their time.

This will help you assess which channels are suitable for reaching this group of people (and whether any of the strategies below make sense).

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3/ Tap your existing network

Try this exercise. Write down a list of 10 people in your network (colleagues, friends/family, acquaintances) who either fit your ideal client profile OR may know others who do.

Go through:

• Friends
• Friends of friends
• Current & former colleagues
• School alumni
• Clubs & associations

For example:

Some of my first consulting clients were startup founders who I was friends with or knew me through my tech professional network.

If I didn’t start with my existing network, I would have missed real opportunities.

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4/ Get referrals through your network (to second-degree connections)

According to a 2022 Science research study, researchers “show[ed] that the weakest ties had the greatest impact on job mobility, whereas the strongest ties had the least.”

This applies to portfolio careers as well.

While my direct network may not be interested in my services, they are able to help champion my services to their peers.

For example, one of my advising clients is a Founder/CEO who heard about me from his executive, who is my first-degree connection.

While this executive’s referral wasn’t directly prompted by me, I wouldn’t have been able to access this Founder/CEO without his referral.

If you’re trying to get a referral, then writing a clear, succinct message is key to making it dead-simple for others to introduce you.

Here is an example similar to what I’ve written in the past:

Hi Jessica,

I noticed you’re connected to John Smith at Acme Corp on LinkedIn. I would love to chat with her to learn more about her experience with generating leads at Acme Corp. As you may know, I’m starting to help startups with lead generation in the US market. I promise to respect her time.

Would you mind connecting me?

I can send you a pre-written blurb to make things easy for you.

Thanks,
Adam

Once they respond with the intro, I suggest following up within 24 hours and closing the loop with the introducer on how things went.

When I’m the introducer, I always enjoy hearing from my contact if the conversation went well. I feel motivated to help this person again in the future.

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5/ Cold outreach

The reality is that if you stay in the game long enough, you will exhaust your immediate network.

However, you develop a very clear understanding of your perfect profile.

That’s when it may make sense to start directly reaching out to people who fit your profile.

Here is what I suggest:

• Research and personalize each outreach email or DM
• Focus on mutual connections or shared interests
• Keep the initial messages short and specific
• Track response rates and adjust your approach

Here is an example similar to ones I’ve used in the past:

Subject: Expat PM in Singapore - chat?

I’m John, a PM (ex-Google).

I came across your work while I was researching the expat PM community in Singapore and noticed you also made the leap across the Pacific from SF :)

Can I get your advice as an expat PM for 15 minutes? I’m very curious how you transitioned to Singapore and arrived to your current role, because I share a similar starting point. Happy to also exchange any PM tips/resources that would be helpful for you as well!

Would Friday or Saturday work for you? Happy to work around your schedule.

- John

Liked this? You can access 11 of my proven email/DM scripts here.

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6/ Leverage alumni networks

This could be alumni from previous employers, universities, etc.

For example, my close friend is the Founder and CEO of a service business. The biggest deal he closed in 2024 was for a company founded by his MBA classmate.

Take another friend who is an ex-Uber tech executive.

Uber has an active global alumni network— the company itself is present in 70+ countries and 10k+ cities.

Whenever my friend has to travel for business, one of the first things he does is reach out to other Uber alumni in the city.

This enables him to meet new and interesting folks wherever he goes.

7/ Host and attend relevant events

While everyone talks about attending events (this is fine), not enough people talk about hosting them yourself.

You might not think of yourself as an event host.

But this very effective for the folks I know who run workshops and conferences in their industry.

This might look like:

• Facilitating workshops and panels
• Hosting intimate dinner meetups
• Creating exclusive peer groups
• Organizing executive roundtables

I used to co-host and attend growth dinners in SF with folks who worked in the growth function and have since gone on to become successful founders.

While I wasn’t consulting at the time, if I was I’m sure that would have been a excellent group to start tapping for conversations.

8/ Work with channel partners

This is one of my favorite strategies. This looks like:

• Working with collective, agency, or 3rd party platform (e.g. GoFractional)
• Partnering with complementary services (e.g. Flexer.ai + Mavic)
• Building referral partnerships (e.g. investors, peer consultants)

In my experience, I have partnered with B2B consulting service providers to help scale my pipeline and access new markets I never would have been able to otherwise.

One of our cohort graduates has also established referral partnerships with complementary consultants, so they can support each other on their growth.

9/ Join and engage in online communities (e.g. Slack groups)

While the 2010s belonged to giant social platforms, the 2020s are all about decentralization towards niche communities.

Nowadays, there is a relevant Slack/Reddit group for just about any function/industry/topic (e.g. Lenny’s Newsletter for product folks).

Here is how to implement this strategy:

1. Join the top 3-5 communities in your space
2. Introduce yourself
3. Add value before asking for anything
4. Connect with active individuals

Adding value looks like:

• Answering questions
• Sharing industry insights
• Sharing personal experiences
• Highlighting useful tools & tips

Do this enough times—and you’ll naturally start building genuine relationships.

For example, I recently joined a group for newsletter writers called Growth in Reverse Pro.

By connecting with other newsletter writers, we found opportunities to swap tricks of the trade and collaborate on cross-promotions.

10/ Join and engage in industry organizations

I think of this as a long-game strategy. Depending on your line of work, you can join professional associations for your field (e.g. Women in Product for female product professionals).

In these groups you can typically:

• Volunteer for leadership roles
• Host and attend industry events
• Build relationships with other leaders

While this is not a direct way to meet potential clients, you’ll meet industry peers who you can collaborate with—and some may even turn out to champion your work.

I am not a part of associations, but have benefited from them. I gained a significant number of of coaching referrals due to being recommended on coaching lists shared within a product association.

11/ Add value to other peoples’ audiences (speaking, hosting webinars, podcast guesting)

Given the rise of people and orgs with big audiences, it makes a lot of sense to explore how you can help their audiences solve their problems.

This might look like:

• Providing webinars for a relevant org
• Speaking at companies, conferences, or alumni groups
• Podcast guesting
• Creating trainings or classes

In my case:

For consulting, I have been invited to speak at several tech companies on product management and growth. Some of this has led to inquiries about fractional/consulting services.

For Money Abroad, I have shared tips and resources through other peoples’ webinars and podcast guesting. This has led to helping their audience while also generating interest in my programs.

In Summary

• Building relationships is about creating genuine connections
• Success comes from having a clear strategy and goals
• You don’t have to use all 11 strategies—pick the ones align with your strengths and what your clients resonate with
• Strategies
  • Define your business development goal
  • Identify who you want to meet
  • Tap your existing network
  • Get referrals through your network
  • Cold outreach
  • Leverage alumni networks
  • Host and attend relevant events
  • Work with channel partners
  • Join and engage in online communities
  • Join and engage in industry organizations
  • Add value to other peoples’ audiences
• Next Steps: Choose your business development goal, define your ideal client profile, select 3-5 strategies from this guide, setup a simple tracking system, and start executing!

🌐 Beyond your borders

🍄 Former co-founder & CTO of Loom (acquired by Atlassian for $975M) wrote a viral post about getting rich and having no idea what to do with his life that’s been making the waves on the internet. My take: Pay close attention to your identity in life outside of work.

📈 Is S&P 500 growth tapped out? Nick Maggiulli dives into the data, which reveals some surprising insights from the past 100 years.

✍️ 2035: An Allocator Looks Back on the Last 10 Years has been making the rounds. Obviously no one can predict the financial future, but I found myself really enjoying this read.

🧠 Social snippets

Last week, I filmed & edited 4 video lessons >50% faster using an AI editing tool.

Here are the most overrated side hustles (for boosting income).

For daily insights, follow me on Linkedin or Threads.

FROM OUR READERS

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