CASE FILE: Networking

Subject: John Wayne Gacy Jr. Known for: Democratic precinct captain, contractor, charity clown (“Pogo”) Estimated victims: 33 Operational period: 1972–1978

Before we get into the advice, let’s acknowledge something: John Wayne Gacy ran a successful construction business, served on the local Jaycees board, threw neighbourhood barbecues, and had his photograph taken with First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

The man networked.

Gacy’s professional life was built entirely on local visibility. He showed up. He volunteered. He hosted. He performed at children’s hospitals dressed as a clown. When people in Norwood Park needed a contractor, they called the guy they’d had a beer with at the block party — not some anonymous company from the Yellow Pages.

Visibility is credibility. Most people dramatically underestimate how much of business runs on simple recognition. Not expertise. Not price. The fact that someone has seen your face before.

Attend the local business association meetings. Sponsor the youth football team. Know the name of the woman who runs the dry cleaner on the corner. These things compound over years into a reputation that is extraordinarily difficult to displace.

Gacy understood this intuitively. His downfall had nothing to do with his networking strategy.

The crawl space situation is a separate matter entirely and outside the scope of this case file.

File closed. Results pending.