I was going to suggest submitting to ODP if you're not already listed there, which is always a good idea anyway, though I don't know how relevant that is to Teoma. I just checked again, and a site of mine that's been up since end of November, never submitted to Teoma and with only a few incoming links, and also not in ODP, is listed and ranking with Teoma. It is, however linked to from a site that is very heavily linked up and popular, as well as being in Teoma for a while.
I doubt that there's any hard and fast rule, but it can't hurt to check out sites decently ranked at Teoma and topically related to yours that have good linkage going for them and try to get links from them. It's a totally uneducated speculation, but to be honest, I attribute my site's inclusion to its being linked to from that site, as well as another popular, heavily linked up site within the same general topical niche.
Another site I look after has the latest title and description listed, and is ranking at Teoma (latest meaning around January or February this year); it's got links from similar type sites that are thematically related, a few also heavily linked up.
A third fairly new site, within the same niche type, has a few good links, one a PR6 and an ODP listing, and has better Page Rank than either of the other two I mentioned, but lacks the type of linkage the other two have. It is doing fine with Google as of this month, but is not listed with Teoma at all yet.
I'm discerning something that's probably not much more than instinctive, speculative guesswork with nothing substantial to back it up, but my inclination is to go after links that are topically related. It can't hurt, because it even makes sense from the standpoint of relevancy. Still, keep in mind to avoid any that have Google penalties to stay on the safe side.
