Assignment 20A – Growing Your Social Capital

Assignment 20A – Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert:

1.     Who they are, what their background is:

a.     Sam, owner and former manager of a Midtown bar

2.     How is this person a “domain expert”:

a.     He has been working in the restaurant business for most of his life. He went on to becoming a manager in Midtown and eventually the owner. Before working in Gainesville he worked in multiple other college towns.

3.     How I found and contacted this person:

a.     I have a friend who is a bouncer at a Midtown bar. I asked if he could connect me with his manager.

4.     Nature of Exchange: What they did for me, what is the return expectation:

a.     I explained how I felt about the current situation in Midtown and how I believed a new bar/restaurant would benefit the area. He went into detail about his own experience working and managing bars in college towns. It was very helpful, however he does not have experience opening a new bar.

5.     How will including them enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity:

a.     He has many years of experience managing people and handling the logistical aspects of owning a bar. He also understands the market and how to target college students and local residents. He agreed that there is an opportunity to open a new bar in Midtown, but explained it has to be a specific type of business to be successful. It was very helpful getting his perspective on how it would be to start a new business here and to learn about how businesses work with suppliers as well.

Market Expert:

1.     Who they are, what their background is:

a.     Sarah is a junior at UF who works as a promotor/ambassador for a popular Midtown bar, Swamp. She is also in a sorority here.

2.     How is this person a “market expert”:

a.     I was unable to find a researcher on my market, so I choose a student who works to target college students who enjoy going out. She also enjoys going out frequently to mid.

3.     How I found and contacted this person:

a.     I played club lacrosse with her two years ago and remembered seeing that she worked as a promoter for Swamp. I reached out the other day to see if I could talk to her about it.

4.     Nature of Exchange: What they did for me, what is the return expectation:

a.     We just texted back and forth about her experience working as an ambassador and what her background is with marketing to students. She was very open about her use of social media and other promotional tactics she uses. She shared some specific marketing posts she has done as well.

5.     How will including them enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity:

a.     As a college student, she has a unique perspective on marketing to students. She was supportive of my idea and told me she would continue sharing her marketing techniques with me. I think she will be a good resource to have regarding marketing to college students and she may be able to help me with marketing to Gainesville residents as well.

Industry Supplier:

1.     Who they are, what their background is:

a.     John. He works at First Mag in Gainesville and handles suppling local bars and restaurants with their beer.

2.     How this person is an “industry supplier”:

a.     He specifically works to communicate with Gainesville bars and restaurants to provide them with their products. It is popular to have options of beer from local brewery’s and I think that is something I would like my restaurant to have as well. He knows his products well and is very knowledgeable on supplying Gainesville bars and restaurants.

3.     How I found and contacted this person:

a.     Me and my friends go to First Mag a lot. The last time I was there it was not very crowded and I asked if someone working in supply management could talk with me.

4.     Nature of Exchange: What they did for me, what is the return expectation:

a.     I tried to make it a quick exchange because he wasn’t someone I knew and he was doing me a big favor. I explained what we were doing for class. He didn’t get into specifics numbers on how much their beer costs are for large orders. But he explained how it works depending on the business they are supplying to and it was very helpful.

5.     How will including them enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity:

a.     This gave me a really great background on the supply of alcohol for my business. I wasn’t expecting to get this inside knowledge, but it is going to help my view my business proposal in a more realistic way.

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?

a)     This assignment was more difficult than I expected. Finding people to talk to seemed hard, until I started reaching out to my current network. It helped me connect with people that I never would have expected to. In future networking events, I plan to try to develop relationships with as many people as I can. I learned you never know who could connect you to who you need. This was more different than most of my past networking experiences. I mostly did networking for job opportunities, where I was talking to people in fields that I was knowledgeable in. This experience was more out of my comfort zone and I didn’t know which questions were appropriate to ask and which weren’t.