[This article expands and deepens a personal model I first introduced in “The Three Fundamentals of Productive Networking”, where I argued that a professional network is not defined by the number of contacts, but by the ability to identify how many are willing and prepared to be activated on our behalf.]
On LinkedIn, you can accumulate thousands of contacts and followers, grow your network through recommendations, or maintain steady visibility that keeps your numbers rising. Yet none of that necessarily reflects how a strong professional network truly works.
Relationships are not organized as endless lists; they take the shape of concentric layers of value, where each circle represents a different level of trust, affinity, and mutual contribution.
The 5 Concentric Circles of Value©
At the very center lies a small, tightly defined group of people with whom you have deeply rooted relationships.
This is where real relational capital is created, because friction is minimal and the willingness to collaborate —in both directions— is almost instantaneous.
As we move outward from the center, contacts still hold value, but their impact changes. Some offer perspective or situational insight; others open doors at specific moments; and some remain occasional connections that still add value without requiring deeper engagement.
The entire ecosystem matters, but each layer serves a different purpose, and not all of them weigh equally in the creation of long-term professional opportunities.
Let’s walk through each of the five circles…
1. Core
This is the absolute core, usually made up of around ten people with whom we have a deep-trust relationship. These are connections where trust is implicit and doesn’t require constant validation, where help flows without negotiation, and where conversations can be resumed after months without losing rhythm or context.
Here lies our most valuable relational capital: people who know us well, understand how we work, and respond with the same intensity with which we respond to them.
2. Close Contacts
This layer includes people with whom reciprocity is high. They may not be part of our innermost core, but they represent a close circle where there is a real and frequent willingness to support each other.
These are active, consistent relationships with enough depth to generate opportunities naturally.
3. Regular Contacts
This group is made up of professionals with whom we maintain a stable, constructive, and useful relationship, but with a more moderate level of interaction.
There is mutual respect and a flow of value that appears intermittently, depending on context and timing. They function as a reliable network, though not an especially intense one.
4. Extended Network
Here we find those who are part of our network in a more occasional way. Contact is sporadic and expectations naturally align with that reality.
There may not be a deep relationship, but there is potential for punctual value or reactivation over time if both sides decide to move closer. This layer represents the dormant potential of our network.
5. General Network
The final circle includes everyone else: the hundreds or thousands of contacts forming the broadest layer of your professional ecosystem.
There is no active relationship or significant interaction here, but this layer contains visibility, reach, and the possibility that future opportunities emerge if some of these individuals move toward closer circles. It is the fertile ground from which future connections can grow when approached with intention and consistency.
A Dynamic System, Not a Static Map
It’s essential to understand that these layers are not fixed. Contacts move, advance, or shift outward depending on how the relationship evolves over time.
“A distant contact can move closer to the core if there is a consistent process of reactivation, presence, and care.”
This has nothing to do with opportunistic tactics or forcing artificial acceleration in relationships; rather, it only works when approached with transparency, respect, and no urgency to extract immediate benefit. Trust cannot be forced — it must be cultivated.
Similarly, someone very close could drift outward. It’s not common, because reaching the core implies a level of mutual respect and shared value that isn’t easily diminished, but it can happen if the relationship stops being bilateral or if one side stops investing in its natural flow of shared value.
Even then, such movements are rarely abrupt, because relationships within the core tend to have already proven their stability, depth, and long-term consistency.
The Network Also Expands from Within
This model does not only describe how we relate; it also explains how our connections grow.
People positioned in any of the layers can act as bridges to new relationships that might eventually join the system. And occasionally, a particularly valuable phenomenon occurs —what I call internal triangulation.
“Here, someone already inside one of the circles catalyzes a connection between two people who don’t yet know each other, acting —in a very fitting metaphor— like a blockchain block that validates the transaction, provides initial trust, and enables the new link to be built on solid ground.”
That validation is significant; it reduces uncertainty, accelerates trust, and opens the door to relationships that might otherwise never have surfaced.
The True Map of Your Network
This is why, beyond the number of contacts or your overall visibility on social networks, what truly matters is the composition of these circles and how they evolve over time.
The key questions are three: who is in your core, who are you bringing closer, and who are you allowing to drift away. That is the real map of your professional network —a living system, constantly in motion, growing when nurtured with intention and deteriorating when taken for granted.
[This model has been developed by its author, Oriol Guitart. All rights reserved, with the duration and extension established by the Intellectual Property Law. Its reproduction, dissemination, public communication and/or total or partial transformation is strictly prohibited without the express written authorization of the author, who must in any case be recognized as such in any subsequent use.]
