Never Get Too Important to Build Relationships

One of the fastest ways to shrink your future is to decide you are too important to build relationships with people who cannot help you today.

I am a big believer in building your network across every level: interns, assistants, freelancers, operators, managers, founders, executives, writers, vendors, and the person who just started in the industry last month. Not because it is polite. Because you never know.

Jobs shift. Titles get reshuffled. Companies get acquired. People leave, reappear, start something new, or introduce you to the one conversation that changes your year. The people you ignored on the way up have a long memory. So do the people you treated with respect when you did not need anything from them.

Status is temporary. Relationships compound.

A title is a rented identity. It can make you feel permanent when you are not.

I have watched people become “somebody” in sports media, iGaming, content, and startups, then act like the room only exists above them. They network up. They ignore sideways. They dismiss down. Then the market moves, their company changes, or their role disappears, and suddenly the only people left who will take their call are the ones they never made time for.

The smarter play is quieter: stay human at every level. Reply. Introduce people. Remember names. Follow through. Help without keeping score in public.

Why “too important” is a trap

Feeling too important usually shows up in small behaviors:

• Only accepting meetings with decision-makers
• Ignoring messages from junior people
• Treating support staff like furniture
• Collecting business cards from executives and nobody else
• Showing up only when you need a favor
• Assuming your current seat guarantees future access

Those habits feel efficient in the moment. Over a decade they are expensive.

The assistant you brushed off may become the operator who filters every partnership request. The freelancer you underpaid and ghosted may become the hiring manager. The young writer you encouraged may become the editor with budget. The vendor you treated well may tip you off before a deal hits the open market.

You do not build a real network by predicting winners. You build it by being consistently decent while people’s trajectories are still unknown.

Build across levels on purpose

“Network across all levels” does not mean spam everyone. It means your relationship map should not be a pyramid that only points up.

People ahead of you

Learn from them. Be specific when you reach out. Bring value if you can. Do not ask for a mentor relationship in the first message. Ask one clear question or offer one useful insight.

People beside you

Peers are often the most underrated network. They understand your season. They share deals, warnings, freelancers, tools, and introductions without the politics of hierarchy. Some of my best opportunities have come from people at a similar stage who simply trusted me.

People earlier in the journey

This is where ego usually fails. Helping people earlier than you costs little and builds a lot: goodwill, information flow, loyalty, and future optionality. You also stay sharper when you explain what you know to someone newer.

If you only invest in people who can promote you this quarter, you do not have a network. You have a transaction list.

What building relationships actually looks like

It is usually boring and consistent:

• Remember the conversation and follow up later with something useful
• Make introductions when two people should know each other
• Celebrate other people’s wins without making it about you
• Show up to events and talk to more than the “important” table
• Keep soft touchpoints alive on LinkedIn, email, and text without being needy
• Do excellent work with vendors and freelancers, not just clients
• Stay in contact after someone changes jobs

That last one matters. When people change roles, most networks go quiet for a week and then forget them. A short “congrats, proud of you, here if you need anything” message is simple and rare. I have written more about staying useful in follow-up without becoming annoying in How to Follow Up With Leads Without Being Annoying. The same spirit applies to relationships that are not sales leads.

Podcasts, events, and rooms change the game

A lot of my relationship graph was built by being in rooms and creating rooms.

The Knup Sports Show put me in conversations with sports and iGaming leaders I would not have met by waiting for inbound. A podcast is not only content. It is a structured reason to talk to people, learn, and stay connected. If you want the practical production side, How to Start a Podcast With a Simple Setup covers that.

Events work the same way when you use them correctly. Do not only hunt badges with big titles. Talk to operators. Talk to the people running the booth. Talk to the writer covering the show. Talk to the young person who is clearly nervous and trying. Those conversations often age better than the selfie with the keynote speaker.

Online networks still count when they are real

LinkedIn, communities, group chats, and email lists are not fake by default. They become fake when the only move is broadcast self-promotion.

Real online networking looks like:

• Commenting with substance
• Sending a private note after someone posts a milestone
• Sharing someone’s work without asking for credit
• Connecting people in DMs
• Keeping your public presence useful enough that warm intros feel natural

I have been intentional about LinkedIn for years because the platform rewards consistency and conversation when you treat it like a community instead of a billboard. More on that in How to Grow Your LinkedIn Network.

The same idea shows up in smaller communities. A group with real trust beats a giant audience with no relationship density. That is why I care about building smaller circles well, which I covered in How to Build a Small Online Community.

Your network matters more when your life is in motion

This has been on my mind even more as our family prepares for a more location-independent chapter. When you are less tied to one office, one city, or one local lunch circuit, relationships become infrastructure.

Opportunities will not only come from the building you walk into every day. They will come from the people who still answer when you are in another time zone. I wrote about the systems side of that shift in What We're Changing So We Can Work From Anywhere. Systems matter. So do the humans who trust you enough to work with you remotely.

Relationships are also a growth channel

Lead generation gets harder when trust is thin. Cold attention is noisy. Warm introductions still cut through.

A healthy network supports:

• Referrals that arrive pre-trusted
• Partnerships that would never come from a form fill
• Honest market feedback before you waste months
• Talent recommendations when you need help fast
• Second chances when a role, project, or season ends

That is why relationship-building sits next to content and systems in real growth work. Attention without relationships is fragile. I have been writing about that tension in Why Lead Generation Feels Harder Than Marketing. Marketing creates familiarity. Relationships create permission.

How to keep ego from wrecking your network

A few practical rules I try to live by:

• Answer people you used to be. If a younger version of you would have been grateful for the reply, send the reply.
• Do not outsource basic respect. Titles do not excuse rudeness to anyone on the team.
• Give before you ask. Especially when you are “up.”
• Keep score privately, if at all. Public scorekeeping turns generosity into manipulation.
• Stay curious about people without power. They often see the truth of a company faster than executives do.
• Revisit old contacts when they rise. And also when they fall. Character shows in both moments.

Running teams at scale taught me related lessons about culture and people. In What I Learned Running a Sports Content Network at Scale, a lot of the real story was human systems, not just publishing volume. Networks inside and outside your company are both real assets.

A simple weekly habit

If this feels abstract, make it concrete:

• Send two thoughtful check-ins to people at different levels
• Make one introduction that helps someone else
• Leave one useful public comment
• Follow up with one person you met recently
• Help one person who cannot help you back this month

Fifteen to thirty minutes a week is enough to keep a network alive. Waiting until you need something is how networks go cold.

Final thoughts

Never get too important to build relationships. Not with executives. Not with peers. Not with the people just getting started.

You may shift jobs. You may change industries. You may launch something new. You may need a favor from someone who currently has no title worth bragging about. The safest assumption is that today’s “unimportant” relationship is tomorrow’s critical one.

Build the network while you still have the humility to do it well.