My friend, Chris Winfield, tells a story about his dad landing him one of the most pivotal connections of his career, using a school board.

Chris’s dad had nothing to do with what Chris does for a living. Different world entirely. But he served on the local school board with another parent who happened to be an editor at USA Today, working on a story that landed squarely in Chris’s wheelhouse. The editor mentioned the story out loud. Chris’s dad, being the kind of guy who talks about his kid, mentioned his son. And that’s how Chris ended up quoted in USA Today.

Most of us are sitting on our own version of Chris’s dad right now. People we’ve mentally written off as “they can’t really help” because they’re not in our industry, don’t have our audience, don’t seem strategically useful. Meanwhile, we’re also sitting on a second pile: the people we assume are too big, too busy, or too important to ever say yes to us, so we never even try.

Today’s 5-minute fix sorts both piles out. You’re going to score everyone who could plausibly help you on two simple things: how much they could actually help, and how willing they’d likely be to. Then you’ll know exactly who to reach out to first, and how, instead of guessing or avoiding the whole thing entirely.