20A - Growing Your Social Capital

Dominant expert in industry: Employee at a storage unit facility

1)      This person works at a storage unit facility, and he helped me move my things from my apartment into storage in Gainesville for the summer; I have kept his contact information for any concerns about my storage unit

2)      This person fills the slot of “dominant expert in industry.” This is because he is very knowledgeable about the security for the storage units, and I want to be able to implement a similar locking system in my product.

3)      When I had to leave Gainesville due to coronavirus and all classes moving online, I began the task of moving out of my apartment so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it right about now. In the midst of this with just my roommate and our moms, this employee helped us with the process and also taught us how to properly open and close our storage unit. He gave us his contact information in case we had anymore questions, so I just sent him a text asking for information and advice on what best to use for my product.

4)      Having created goodwill between us by helping my mom and I with our moving-out process, he is someone I am comfortable asking for help and advice from.

5)      Because of his knowledge about the security used for the storage units, I can learn from him and figure out how to implement a similar system for my idea.

Expert on market: Owner of a bow-making business with a similar target segment

1)      This person used to run a business selling custom handmade hair bows, often dealing with the mothers of many of my classmates growing up.

2)      She fills in the slot of the “expert on my market.” This is because she primarily sold to middle aged women with young daughters, thus capitalizing on mothers’ natural yearning to do things for their children.

3)      I found the person because she is one of my high school classmate’s mothers. I first contacted my old classmate and thus was able to establish contact with her mother. With a phone call, I asked her if she could give me any insight on how to deal with and create close relationships with consumers in my target segment.

4)      Having known each other for some time now, I believe we have sufficient goodwill. I would sometimes to go over her house to hang out with her daughter, and I was able to build a sort of rapport with her.

5)      I believe this person will enhance my ability to capitalize on my business venture because of her experience in dealing with my target segment. She knows how to speak to and conduct business with middle-aged mothers, and I think that that is very important for me.

Important supplier to industry: Manager at local materials manufacturer

1)      This person is a manager at a local material’s manufacturer, and has several years of experience in materials I am thinking of using for my project.

2)      This person fills the slot of “important supplier to industry.” This is because as a manager at a materials manufacturer, I would be able to learn about and choose from the materials I want to make my lock box product out of.

3)      My father has been friends with this person for many years, and I was able to ask him if he knew anyone that worked with materials. He then gave me his friend’s contact information and I called him and asked for an explanation of what best materials to use for my product.

4)      This person has a friendship with my father, and thus a sufficient amount of goodwill with my family to help me.

5)      I will be able to exploit an opportunity with what I learn from this person’s knowledge and experience. More importantly, I will be able to finalize some aspect of the design for my product.

Reflection:

This experience showed me how to actively seek what I need from people when I network. Instead of just meeting whoever I can, I learned to instead focus on what certain people can offer me in terms of information, advice, and resources. This does differ from my previous experiences, because I have usually just met with and asked people about what they do, not with any targeted mission in mind. Overall, I really liked this assignment, and I can see it helping me in the future.