When you have a network of people who care about you, you can effectively “scale” your activities.

Your network sends you sales leads.

They send you marketing and PR opportunities.

Their eyes and ears are in places where yours are not.

You know how you get people to care about you?

Simple.

Care about them.

It’s easy to say, “wow, all of this email/facebook/twitter is getting in the way of my ‘real work,’ but in reality building relationships with people who can help you (and vice versa) is your job.

Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin, is all about this, in fact.

When you get messages from people or you read their blog and you take the time to acknowledge their outreach or effort, you are saying “I care about you. I am making you a priority.”

When you don’t return a call for weeks, you are saying, “you aren’t that important to me.”

Now, you can say, “look, I’ve got a ton of stuff going on now, but I do care and will call you on DATE.” That’s fine, but you’ve made the step in the right direction.

Yes, you need to be efficient and effective in your time management, but if you start making people a priority and not just tasks on your to-do list, it will come back to you in droves.