The math
Draw yourself in the middle of a page. Around you, draw all the people you know. The average person knows about 250 people. Salespeople tend to know more — but start with 250.
Now each of those 250 people knows their own 250. That's your second degree — 250 × 250 = 62,500 people.
Go one more step. Every one of those people knows another 250. That's third degree — which is, not coincidentally, as far as LinkedIn will show you. Fifteen million people.
Keep going. By the time you get to the sixth degree, you've got the entire planet. Some sheep herder in Austria. A guy in Massachusetts you've never heard of. Garth Brooks. Anybody.
"Six degrees of separation. The farthest away you are from somebody is six degrees. And we're all very connected."
Here's why that matters for selling concrete: your market is nowhere near six degrees wide. In a regional ready-mix market, the owner you're trying to meet is probably two degrees away from you. Maybe three. You just don't know it yet, because you haven't mapped your own network.
Industry terms this page covers
| What you might call it | What I call it |
|---|---|
| Networking | Working six degrees |
| "Who do you know?" | First-degree audit |
| Referrals | Second-degree introductions |
| "Small world" | Three-degree reality check |
Connectors — the Kevin Bacons of your market
Not all first-degree contacts are equal. Some people know 50 people. Some know 5,000. The ones who know 5,000 are called connectors — like Kevin Bacon in the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. One hop through a connector gets you further than ten hops through a non-connector.
In every concrete market, there is somebody who knows everybody. Your job is to find that person.
"Who's the guy that knows all the work that's coming in? Who's the inspector that knows all the jobs? Who's the guy that knows who's getting what, with who and doing what? Find out who that person is. It may be a rebar guy. It may be an inspector. It may be a city councilman. It may be a contractors board representative. Could be some finisher that just kind of knows all the jobs — he doesn't get them, but he just knows everybody. He's been doing it for 30 years."
That guy is worth 100 other first-degree contacts. When he says "oh, you should call Danny over at such-and-such, he's looking," that's a second-degree intro that lands warm. Cold calls landing warm is the whole game.
Find your connector. Feed the relationship. Don't try to sell him — most of the time he's not even a customer. He's a hub.
The Garth Brooks exercise
Pick anybody famous. Garth Brooks.
"Huh, I know he plays Vegas gigs, and I know a bunch of musicians in Vegas, I bet one of them would know him, or know somebody. So I'd go to my first contact, somebody who works at the Caesars group, and they go, 'oh yeah, he used to play the Forum — let me, ooh, you know who you should talk to, the stage manager for the Forum, he's a buddy of mine.' Now two degrees in, I'm at the stage manager who met Garth Brooks. Then maybe his manager, who gets me to Garth Brooks. Three or four degrees. Closer than you think."
Now run that same exercise on the owner of the biggest contractor in your market. The one you've been telling yourself "I'll never get a meeting with that guy."
Who do you know that probably knows him? Who do they know that probably knows him? I'll bet you're three hops away. Maybe two.
The reason you haven't gotten the meeting isn't that it's impossible. It's that you've never asked your network to help you. Most sellers never do. They just cold-call, get told no by the gatekeeper, and decide the guy is unreachable.
How to actually work it
- Write down 50 people you know in or adjacent to the concrete business. Customers, past customers, dispatchers you used to work with, a cousin who does drywall, the estimator who moved to another contractor, the retired finisher you still see at Home Depot.
- Circle the top five who seem to know everybody. Those are your connectors.
- Pick one target — a specific owner or PM at a company you don't work with yet.
- Ask two of your connectors: "Do you know so-and-so over at such-and-such? Or do you know somebody who does? I'd love to meet him."
- Shut up and listen. Half the time the answer is "oh yeah, I play softball with his brother-in-law." The other half, "no, but let me ask around."
- Follow the chain. If it takes two or three hops to get a warm intro, take the two or three hops. It's still faster than cold-calling for six months.
Why sellers don't do this
Two reasons.
One — pride. Asking for an introduction feels like asking for help. A lot of sellers don't want to admit they need a hand getting in the door. That's ego. The connector doesn't care. Most connectors actually love being asked because it confirms their status as the person who knows everybody. You're giving them a stroke, not imposing.
Two — they haven't mapped the network. If you've never actually sat down and listed your 250 people, you can't work them. You're just hoping the right intro happens by accident. Hope isn't a strategy.
Do the list. Work the connectors. The market is smaller than you think.
Where to go next
- Six-Pack — the geographic version: when you land one, go get the five around it
- Gatekeeper as Key Master — turning the receptionist into your first-degree ally
- Infiltrate Strategy — once you're in, meet everybody in the building
- Collecting Owners — why owner-level relationships are the highest-leverage first-degree contacts
Source: drawn from 7 explicit moments across the live-coaching corpus — including the 250 × 250 math, the Kevin Bacon connector framing, the Garth Brooks walk-through, and the "find the guy who knows everybody" rule. Voice preserved.