Growing Your Social Capital

Domain expert – For this position, I was able to contact with an IT person who developed a website with a similar layout to the one I would make for this service. They work for a clothing store with an online selling service. One of my cousins works for the store and helped me make contact with this person. This person was able to show me how to build a website like the one I would make for this service. There is a lot of work to it, but they made it like really easy since they have a lot of experience. My cousin vowed to work harder to make it up to them. Now I will be able to set up the design for this service or do something similar if my plans change.

Market expert – For this position, I was able to contact somebody working at a pet store. They have been there over three years and have a lot of experience helping customers finding the right pet products for their needs. I was able to make contact with this person by simply going to the local pet store. I asked them if they had time to listen to my pitch and they did. They did not expect anything in return, but found my product interesting. They know there are people that go to the store and are too shy to ask for help. They think this type of people may be interested in my product, since those more outgoing simply ask people at the store for help. This may make me change my target market.

Supplier – For this position, I was able to contact somebody that works at a manufacturer of pet food. They have worked there for a total of 12 years, but would like to find something new since they have grown tired of their career. I contacted this person through the “contact us” link on the pet food supplier’s website. I sent them a description of my idea and asked if they think it would be a good idea and if it needed any changes. They did not expect anything in return, except to buy their products in the future, since I do not even own a pet. Through this interaction, I found it may be beneficial to contact different suppliers. They may promote my service in exchange for promoting theirs on my website.

This assignment has really taught me a lot about networking. Being generally are willing to help. If you go out there and do work to initiate contact, they are usually more than happy to help you with whatever you are trying to do. In future networking events, I will make sure to try to put myself out there. I will try to initiate contact and try to make myself memorable in a positive manner. If they did not have a positive experience with you, they would probably not want to help you when you come looking for help. In previous networking events, I usually tried letting people come to me, but I learned you can be a lot more successful if you take action yourself.