When you do this at networking events, you become your new contact's hero — making it much more likely that they will refer or introduce their contacts to you that can benefit from what you offer.

Are you getting too many LinkedIn requests that, once accepted, immediately turn into sales pitches? If so, there's a setting in your account you can change to combat this. Try it and see if it makes you feel more zen when using LinkedIn.

Here are our two cardinal rules when someone in your network introduces you to someone from their network.