When someone asks a professional favor – an introduction to a corporate bigwig, for example, or help with a job search – that’s like asking for a gift. Your agreeing to lend a hand creates an obligation on the one who asks for the favor. That means you have a leg up but only for a very short time.

That’s how Anna Belyaev, CEO and cofounder of Type A Multimedia, a Chicago firm that creates e-learning programs, sees it. Belyaev keeps up the frenetic pace you’d expect from the head of a five-year-old startup, beginning with 8:00 a.m. meetings and ending with emails at 11:30 at night. But she’s a strong believer in doing favors – so much so that she’s set herself a quota of doing five good turns a week. The result: a web of reciprocity that has helped bring in more prospects than she can count. “I’ve got leads coming out of my ears,” she says.

“It’s part of my prospecting plan that I introduce other people and provide them with leads. Then you feel you can count on them to do the same,” she explains. “It’s a kind of barter-exchange.”

Belyaev is completely comfortable asking others for favors, largely because of time she spent in the former Soviet Union when she was a graduate student in Russian literature and history. There, she says, “the entire economy runs on bartering and mutual obligation.” When she landed in Chicago several years later, she had little luck landing appointments with decision makers at Fortune 500 companies – but she did meet a lot of management consultants who needed Websites built. So she proposed a swap: she’d build their sites for free in exchange for 10 introductions to people in her target markets. “We would agree in advance who those 10 people would be, what constituted an introduction, and what the deadline was,” she notes. The system worked so well that Belyaev can trace almost all of her large clients to a barter deal.

Belyaev took her early cues on networking from the classic career book What Color Is Your Parachute? In it, author Richard Nelson Bolles argues that if you’re not specific in telling people what you want, they won’t know how to help you. So when Belyaev meets someone new at any of the myriad networking events she attends (including a special-interest group she formed within the Association for Multimedia Communication), she doesn’t say, “Call me if you know anyone who might be interested in our services.” She says, “If you know of anyone at a large corporation or nonprofit who has the title of chief security officer, chief marketing officer or brand manager, I’d appreciate an introduction.” See the difference?

Sometimes, though, when your target market isn’t biting, you’ve got to fish in different waters. That’s how Gary Pines, a sales trainer with Harding & Company, based in New York and Chicago, has weathered one of the most brutal markets for consulting services in recent memory.

When salespeople are on the prowl for new business, says Pines, they habitually go after the usual suspects: buyers or influencers who contribute to the purchase decision. Most times, that’s the efficient, expedient thing to do. But Gary has sailed through a dour economy by pursuing a third type of contact: connectors. Connectors are people who can’t necessarily approve or influence a purchase, but they can lead you to someone who can. Consider this chapter from Pines’ playbook:

Pines is member of the Economic Club of Chicago, a prestigious organization populated by the area’s most powerful C-level executives (George W. Bush spoke at one of their recent lunches.) Pines was appointed to the admissions committee and became friendly with an executive who, as it turned out, went to the same grade school Pines did. One day, the executive said, “Gary, I’ve got this friend. He’s 55 years old and has just been laid off from one of the major accounting firms. Can you talk to him and help with his job search?”

Pines was happy to oblige. After meeting the friend for lunch, Pines realized the man was still in shock over his layoff and nowhere near ready to mount a full-scale job search. Six months passed. Pines called to see how he was doing.

“At this point his head was in a much better place,” says Pines. “He understood how difficult it was going to be to find another job.” They chatted about how the man should get himself out into the marketplace, and Pines tossed out some ideas. The executive was so grateful, he said to Pines, “You’ve been so helpful. Now what can I do for you?”

Ah, the magic words. This executive, like hundreds of other contacts in his database, was a “connector” who Pines had cultivated by doing favors. And in this case, it paid off. Pines had been trying to penetrate one of the big-four accounting firms, and he recalled that the executive knew someone who had just taken a senior position there. Pines said to the executive, “If I can get to that person, I will have taken another leap forward. You’re good friends with her. Can you set up an introduction?’” The executive did, and Pines got the meeting.

With connectors, results aren’t guaranteed; there’s not always quid pro quo. “When we were kids, if you did someone a favor, you waited for them to do you a favor back,” he explains. “And if they didn’t, you felt cheated.” But in the adult world, says Pines, “you give and give and you might not get anything back.” Instead, sales pros should be “planting seeds all over the place and hoping something’s going to grow.” Sew only two seeds and there’s little probability anything will sprout, he maintains. But scatter a hundred and suddenly doors will open.