Always Take the Meeting
Explore the long tail of relationships to create more chances for luck
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
Always Take the Meeting is a practical rule for increasing exposure to useful surprises. Established relationships predictably generate most immediate value, but concentrating exclusively on them creates blind spots. Hoffman invokes journalism's 80/20 pattern: a small group of professional sources supplies most tips, while a much larger long tail produces fewer but potentially distinctive insights. The method is to preserve bounded capacity for conversations beyond the obvious network, approach them with curiosity, and retain weak signals that may become valuable later. It does not require accepting every invitation without judgment. Its purpose is to avoid filtering opportunities solely by visible short-term payoff and thereby put yourself in a better position to become lucky.
Origin
Extracted from Masters in Business through Liz Hoffman's career advice for journalists.
Core principles
- 01Luck becomes more likely when you create more points of contact.
- 02Reliable sources matter, but unexpected value lives in the long tail.
- 03A meeting can be worthwhile even without an obvious immediate payoff.
- 04Weak ties can reveal information unavailable through established channels.
How to run it
- 1
Protect exploratory capacity
Set aside a bounded amount of time for conversations outside your highest-yield relationships. This prevents immediate priorities from eliminating all serendipity.
Pro tip Use a recurring weekly slot so exploratory meetings do not consume the entire calendar.
Watch out Do not let low-value meetings displace deadlines or essential work.
- 2
Meet beyond the obvious network
Speak with credible people who have relevant experience even when they cannot promise an immediate tip, deal, or opportunity.
Pro tip Prioritize people with unusual vantage points rather than impressive titles alone.
Watch out Screen for relevance, safety, and conflicts before accepting.
- 3
Search for the non-obvious signal
Ask what the person is noticing, what others misunderstand, and which developments are being ignored. Listen for information that differs from the consensus.
Pro tip Use open questions before narrowing into your current hypothesis.
Watch out Do not force every conversation to validate an existing story.
- 4
Retain and reconnect
Record useful context and maintain the relationship even if nothing actionable appears immediately. Revisit the contact when circumstances make the information relevant.
Pro tip Capture the person's domain, vantage point, and potential future relevance.
Watch out A long-tail network loses value when follow-up is careless or purely transactional.
In the wild
A financial reporter accepts a meeting with an operations employee outside the usual executive and banking network. Nothing is publishable immediately, but the employee explains a supply-chain bottleneck that becomes central to an industry story several months later.
→ A low-probability meeting creates differentiated reporting when conditions change.
Hoffman's career moved through a parenting publication, a legal trade outlet, The Wall Street Journal, and a startup that had not existed a year earlier. Each setting added skills and relationships that could not have been predicted from her original plan to cover sports.
→ Openness to non-linear opportunities built a broader reporting career.
Common mistakes
Only meeting proven sources
High-yield contacts improve efficiency but can produce the same information and assumptions as everyone else in the field.
Treating every meeting as urgent
The method requires bounded exploration, not surrendering the calendar to anyone who asks for time.
Demanding an immediate payoff
Long-tail relationships often become useful only after new events reveal the significance of earlier information.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for journalists, investors, founders, and business developers whose work benefits from non-obvious information.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when indiscriminate meetings crowd out core work or involve people with no plausible relevance or trustworthiness.
From the transcript
“My one piece of advice I spiascit he is always take the meeting. Just you literally never know.”
“But I will tell you that long tail is really long and you get really interesting stuff if you're willing to spend some time on…”
From the episode
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Liz Hoffman