I have been thinking again about an idea I have talked about for years. I call it the 1-2-7 Strategy.
The concept is simple. Pick one national trade or professional association that matters to your career. Choose two local business or community organizations where you can really get involved. Then commit to participate for seven years.
Not just join. Participate.
There is a big difference between paying dues, showing up at the occasional happy hour, and actually becoming part of a community. If you want the 1-2-7 Strategy to work, you have to show up. Meet people. Volunteer for things. Join a committee. Help with an event. Introduce people to each other. Raise your hand when something needs to get done. At some point, maybe you serve on a board or take on a leadership role.
And then you keep doing it.
This is where a lot of people get frustrated with networking and professional associations. They join something for a year, attend three events, do not get any business from it right away, and decide the organization does not work.
Relationships do not work that way.
What happens over seven years is very different from what happens over seven months.
In the beginning, you are just another person in the room. Over time, people start to recognize you. Then they get to know you. Eventually they know what you do, what you care about, how you treat people, and whether you are someone who follows through.
That is when something much bigger than networking begins to happen. You become part of the community.
People start thinking of you when opportunities come up. They introduce you to others. They ask your opinion. They invite you into conversations you would never have known were happening. And sometimes those opportunities have nothing to do with the reason you originally joined.
I have watched this play out over and over throughout my career.
The mistake is thinking more organizations are always better. They are not. If you join ten different groups and bounce from event to event, you can easily know hundreds of people without really being known by anyone.
The power of the 1-2-7 Strategy is depth.
One national organization gives you exposure to people and ideas outside your local market. Two local organizations let you become deeply connected to the business community where you actually live and work. Seven years gives those relationships time to develop into something real.
We keep looking for ways to make everything faster, and there is something worth remembering here. Community cannot be rushed.
AI can help us research faster, communicate faster, create faster, and automate all kinds of tasks that used to take hours. But trust still takes time. Reputation takes time. Friendship takes time. Becoming someone other people know, like, respect, and remember takes time.
That is why I think the 1-2-7 Strategy may matter even more today than it did when I first started talking about it.
If you are 30 years old, think about what your professional life could look like at 37 if you started now. Think about how many people would know you, how many people you would have helped, how many conversations you would have been part of, and how many unexpected opportunities might have come your way.
And if you are 40, 50, or 60, the same thing applies. Seven years is going to pass anyway.
The question is whether you will spend those seven years standing on the edge of your professional community, or whether you will become part of it.
I believe all opportunities come from people.
The 1-2-7 Strategy is simply a way to make sure you are around enough people, for enough time, doing enough meaningful things together, for those opportunities to have a chance to happen.
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Thom Singer, CSP, is a professional speaker who has been talking about “human connection in a digital world” for over 20 years. In our AI era, this is so much more important than it has been in the past.