20A – Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert:

1) Who they are and what their background is. Gary Kulla. Owner of Target Music down in South Florida for over 20 years.

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot. He has had his own music business that he started from the guidance of a mutual friend that knew what was popular at the time.

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person. He is my Step Uncle that I have known for over ten years now. I keep in contact so I just gave him a call the other day this week.

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation?  I discussed with him my idea of opening up my own business that would focus on shoes and designer clothing. He said that anything is possible if you keep your heart and mind set on the ultimate goal that you want to achieve.

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity? He believes that opening one's own business is still an effective way to become successful in 2019. He argued that it is definitely hard to start-up, but if you invest properly that there should be less interference with your business practice.

Market Expert:

1) Who they are and what their background is. Justin Koenig, a student highly involved with the streetwear market and the idea of starting his own business in the future after he graduates from FGCU, (a freshman now).

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot. He is a market expert that has tried to reach the market of buying and reselling shoes over the internet to conduct profits that pay for his necessities.

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person. He is one of my closest friends so I contacted him with ease over phone and facetime.

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? It was very casual in that we were facetiming and showed each other our shoes and how we could make so much money if we decided to sell them instead of keeping them in our collections. He has great interest and passion of beginning a store with me and he explained how essential it was to have strong inventory that attracted all sorts of consumers.

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity? Nick would be a great helping hand in the future if I needed someone to count on in opening the store one day. He would be able to help get some of the more limited items that we could sell because he has strong connections with people in Nike and Adidias.

Industry Supplier:

1) Who they are and what their background is. Valerie Howard. Store owner at The UPS Store here in Gainesville, FL for over thirty years.

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot. She is an industry supplier of boxes that I would need to have on hand at my store if I decided to sell sneakers online to ecommerce buyers. She has boxes that would fit all of my shoe sizes boxes for a cheaper price than anywhere that I could buy them elsewhere.

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person. I worked at The Ups Store previously so I called her store and spoke with her over the phone for a good 15 minutes after catching up with her.

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? I told her my idea of opening a shoe store and she was already familiar with my shoe passion. She said that having boxes provided to my store would be a great monetary investment for her and that she said to not hesitate in asking for some help from her. It was my favorite conversation out of the three for this assignment because it taught me that it is essential to never burn a bridge. 

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity? This idea of developing an online version of my store was something that I recently thought of because of the strong importance of omnichannel in the retail world that we live in today. Consumers are always buying on their phones. So, having a digital format of my store would most likely be most beneficial.

Finally: Reflect. This experience requires you to do a little 'targeted networking.' How will this experience shape how you participate in any future networking events? Did this experience differ from your networking experiences in the past? How?

Networking is something very challenging for anyone who is not really an extravert. Like myself who is pretty timid, this was a great experience speaking with people and practicing my professional communication skills. However, more recently I have been becoming more involved at UF where I am networking and really developing as a better speaker. Like anything, if you practice it, it will most likely develop stronger and better than before. This assignment has made me want to be more involved with networking opportunities because it gets your name out there and could possibly lead to something you never thought that was possible!