How can I help? The critical 4-word question every entrepreneur needs to ask

Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California is a famous street for entrepreneurs. Lining this stretch are elite venture capital firms, and nearly every top Silicon Valley company has started here.

So, I was understandably a little intimidated back in 2009 on one of my first fundraising trips to the Valley for Hootsuite. Would investors give me the time of day? Would they share my enthusiasm for building a social media management platform? Would I even be able to get in the door?

But something unexpected happened—almost eerie. Time and time again, inside conference rooms, at coffee shops, or when huddling in hotel lobbies, I kept hearing a four-word phrase from investors and entrepreneurs:

“How can I help?”

VCs like Geoff Entress from Voyager Capital asked me this. Angel investor Dave McClure asked me this. Kissmetrics CEO Hiten Shah asked me this. These were powerful and extremely busy people, yet there they were offering up their time, expertise, connections, and critical thinking power to a new entrepreneur.

After almost a decade, I heard that same four-word mantra again last month. At Startup Grind’s Global Conference earlier this year, the entrepreneurial all-stars on stage were using it. At Google, special projects lead Gia Scinto sat down with me and asked the very same question.

I had an “aha” moment and had to stop and ask myself: What was so special about this four-word phrase? And why so many incredibly successful people are using it?

The power of asking, “How can I help?”

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. If business is all about who you know, then this simple line— How can I help?—might be the ultimate networking tool. At it’s heart, it’s a powerful way to fast-track relationships and build goodwill. By offering to help, you cultivate instant rapport and establish an immediate sense of trust. Rather than waiting for someone to prove themselves to you, you take the bull by the horns and prove yourself to them. A foundation is built, with striking speed and efficiency, for future interactions.

It struck me that all these wildly successful people had probably been offering a helping hand long before they were successful. In fact, it was likely their willingness to help—the connections built and doors opened as a result—that accounted in good measure for their success.

The key to cementing relationships isn’t just offering help, of course. It’s following through and actually providing it. I’ve seen this throughout my career. From our earliest meetings, for example, one of my investors had always made a point of asking me how he can help out—advice, employee referrals, you name it. In fact, I owe half of my executive team to his Rolodex. John Ruffalo, incidentally, is one of the best connected and most successful investors around, with an uncanny track record. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

So, how does it work?

What’s the mysterious mechanism at work here? How, exactly, does helping others help you? Well, you could equate it to business karma. I truly believe that helping other people sets you up for cosmic success at some level, whether that’s in business or in everyday life. In fact, the less distinction you make between the two, the better. What goes around almost inevitably comes around.

But if you prefer more hard-boiled business terminology, you could think of the help you offer as an investment. Like any investment, it might pay off in the short term, you may have to stick around for the long haul or it might be a bust altogether. But I’ve found more often than not that you do see a healthy return from the help you extend, though usually in ways that are more complex, mysterious, and powerful than you might imagine.

Learning to ask for help too