How to Build the Relationship Before You Need It
Published · updated · by Loopin
The people who get replies are rarely better at writing messages. They are people whose name the recipient has already seen being useful.
The four touches
One: a specific comment on something they made, not a compliment. Two: sharing their work somewhere real, and telling them you did. Three: something useful with no ask attached — an introduction, a piece of information, a fix. Four: the ask, months later.
Skipping to four is what everybody does and it is why the reply rate is what it is. Each of the first three costs about a minute.
Comment on the thing, not the person
"The way the drums drop out under the second verse" is a comment. "Amazing work" is a form letter. Specificity is the only proof that you actually engaged, and it is the entire signal.
Do this in public where possible. A comment on a post is seen by them and by everyone else in the scene, which is two returns for one minute.
Be useful without a receipt
Send someone a curator who might like their record, tell them about an opportunity, connect two people who should know each other. Do not mention it again and do not follow it with an ask that week.
This is the touch that actually builds the relationship, and it is the one people skip because the return is not immediate. The return is that in six months your message opens differently.
Six months is the timescale
Not six days. The pattern only works because the gap between usefulness and asking is long enough that the first was clearly not a transaction.
Which means you have to start now, with people you do not yet need. That is the uncomfortable part and it is the whole method.
Keep twenty names, not two hundred
Twenty people in your actual scene, one tier above you, tracked in a note: who they are, what you last said, what they are working on. Twenty real relationships outperform two hundred contacts by a distance.
Refresh it monthly. Ten minutes, and it turns networking from an event into a habit — which is the only form of it that works.
Frequently asked questions
How do musicians actually build industry relationships?
Four touches over months: a specific comment on their work, sharing it publicly, doing something useful with no ask attached, and only then the ask. Skipping to the ask is why most messages go unanswered.
How long before I can ask for something?
About six months. The pattern works because the gap between being useful and asking is long enough that the first was clearly not a transaction.
How many people should I be building relationships with?
Around twenty, one tier above you, tracked in a note you refresh monthly. Twenty real relationships beat two hundred contacts.