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The Networkers
338 million run on who they know
- 82% of small teams say referrals are their primary source of new customers
- Small team professionals are 2× more active on LinkedIn than average
- 81% already spend 1+ hours/week trying to scale their network — and get poor results
The Market
16% at firms under 20 (Census) + 10% self-employed (BLS) = 26% × 1.3B professionals (LinkedIn) = 338M
The Economic Value
338M × 2 hrs × 50 weeks = 35 billion hours/year
Small teams spend 2+ hours/week on networking (BNI/Misner, n=12,000)
338 million professionals spend 35 billion hours a year networking.
Sources: Firework/industry data, LinkedIn SMB report, InTouch interviews (n=26), US Census Bureau, BLS, BNI/Misner (n=12,000)