How Many People Can You Keep Track Of?

How many close relationships do you have?  10, 50, 150, 200 or more.   In a recent research project sponsored by InfoTrax, we asked 30 participants how many close friends they had. Responses ranged from five to 182 people. This number fits with what research states about the size of primate groups, and “yes”, humans are a primate social group. The anthropologist Robin Dunbar (1992) makes the argument that the number of close relationships humans have is influenced by the size of our brains.

Primates (humans) have a large brain. Dunbar makes the argument that at a certain group size (100 to 230), we do not know all of the individuals in our social group, and how they relate to each other.  When we cross the group size threshold, the group becomes unstable and will break apart. In direct selling, having an understanding of how close relationships work and how to use technology to facilitate the connections is important.

“What do you mean by close relationships?” you may ask.  A close relationship is one where you have personal information, you trust them and expect to relate to them in the future—you interact with that person frequently.  In addition, you know how each person is related to other members of your close group.  In relationships, we know the other person well enough to adapt and accommodate their needs. For example, you know that you can trust that Frank will be on time and prepared for a three-way call with Sally. You know that Frank’s examples will be appropriate for Sally because you have told Frank about her personal and professional history.

Key members of groups provide a service as bridge members between groups.  A key member has the capacity to keep track of more people and relationships.  We use bridge members to help minimize the cognitive load and still maintain a connection with a wider range of people. For example, my downline may be over 200 people. If I try to keep up with all of them on regular basis, I would never get anything else done.  I would also not have the energy to keep up with anyone else.  However, Carol is a bridge.  She keeps track of a wider range of people and uses her connections to maintain extended connections.  She has a close relationship with leaders who keep track of smaller groups. Carol helps me stay up to date with a wider range of people.

The next question is how you can use technology to help you maintain relationships with more people.  Many researchers and experts have stated that technology may actually make us less able to have true relationships with people.  That may be true if we don’t use technology in a way that facilitates relationships rather than use the technology to exploit or take advantage of others.

Given that there are potential drawbacks to using email, downline charts, Facebook or online discussion groups, should you spend much time using technology to connect with your downline?  Wouldn’t it be better to see them face-to-face or call them up on the telephone?  Recent direct selling research (Ferrell et al., 2010) reports the top distributors in companies take advantage of technology such as personal webpages to build and maintain connections to their downline and customers.

Creating relationships through technology is possible.  However, the key is to remember that relationships go beyond knowing one aspect (what the person purchases) about the other person.  Relationships take time and effort. We not only know the person’s likes and dislikes, we know how they are connected to other people we know and people we don’t know.  This means that your technology should give you a way to maintain connections over longer distances through webpages, Facebook or discussion pages on the company site.  However, if you send out emails on a regular basis and each email is exactly the same as the one to everyone else in your group, you may be missing out on the power of technology.  Use technology to help maintain relationships you have built in the face to face environment.  Use technology to build new relationships. The trick in new relationships is taking time to get to know the person as a person.  This is where your bridge contact comes in handy.  Have the person who introduced you to the new recruit give you some personal information that you can save in your email directory: this can be a point of building the relationship.  Just because I have your email contact does not mean we have or will develop a relationship.

In conclusion, our big brains provide us with a way to keep track of a wide range of people and relationships with and between those people; however, keeping track of complex relationships is mentally challenging.  There are limits to our ability to keep people straight.  The nice part about living in today’s modern world is that technology can provide us with a way to stay in contact with more people.  Distance between us was often the end of a strong relationship.  Technology also provides us with a way to keep information stored about people outside of our brains.  Use your email contact cards to keep information about likes and dislikes and connections with others.  However, technology is not without drawbacks.  People still seem to prefer face to face or telephone talk to help rejuvenate relationships.

Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992). Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. [doi: 10.1016/0047-2484(92)90081-J]. Journal of Human Evolution, 22(6), 469-493.

Ferrell, L., Gonzalez-Pandron, T. L., & Ferrell, O. C. (2010). An assessment of the use of technology in the direct selling industry. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, XXX(2), 157-165.