1. Immediate Relatives and Friends – A young sales person will usually get the immediate family members to be his first customer.  This will follow by his relatives then friends, and then uh-oh… he is out of networks… Personally, I wouldn’t recommend selling to your relatives unless it is a really fantastic product that really benefits your relatives.  Picture this; if the product (1) wasn’t what your relative wanted in the first place or (2) does not prove it is beneficial or worth to your relative, you will be labelled for life for selling crappy products to them.  That will leave you with two choice, either stand up to the possible mockery in future or be absent from family gatherings.  But of course, not all failure stories end up that way.  However, if what you sold was genuinely good for them, then that is a plus point and they will propagate the benefits to their friends becoming your strong first line network!
2. Reconnect with long lost friends – Take time to look through the list of old friends.  Those during your college days, your previous company or friends from the old neighbourhood.  Browse through social network sites that you have accounts in and see if your friends are there.  You will be surprise at how your friends have grown and changed over time.  That point aside, do some catching up through online chats or an email.  Be genuinely interested in the events of life that they have gone through and not blast your latest offers immediately.  It is easier to link up with old friends as there are common topics to talk about.  This reconnection can reveal a network of different expertise or help that you need (but do not know where to find).
3. Get to know more friends at work – Have conversation with colleagues of a different team.  Arrange lunches with colleagues from those teams.  Not only you break the boring routine of having lunch with the same group of colleagues, you get to know what you do not (or may not know) that is happening (rumours) in the company, open new problem solving ideas and build links (and trust) to with another department!  Birds of the same feather fly in a flock.  It holds certain truth in this phrase.  You will have the same mentality (group culture) if you persist to stick with the same group of friends.  By interacting more with peers of different teams, you build a supportive network and trust and will be useful when an inter-team effort is required!
4. Build relationship by extending your current ones – Lastly, from your existing relatives, friends and colleagues, always take the opportunity to find out more about friends of friends, friends of relatives, friends of colleagues, etc… you know what I mean.  Get to know your friends and his friends.  Take the opportunity to build a relationship with this possible new friend.  Ask to be included in their next friends meet up sessions or even propose to link up with this new friend yourself!  This will help you expand your existing network to a bigger one!

These are just ways to build a strong network to support your goals.  Remember, network is your net worth!  So how do you build your strong network?