Growing your Social Capital

This assignment is especially difficult as the persons in my industry don't exactly receive qualifications as to being an expert and even if they are, their opinions are dominated by the fashion and style temperments of this day and age.

Brett Croley

1) Mr. Croley is a clothing seller on instagram and would be a form of my competition. He is member of one of the same organizations I am, UF Baptist Collegiate Ministries. I know of some of his work as some of my customers buy from him. 

2) He would be a domain expert in so far as one could be a domain expert; he sells clothes and makes decent money off of it. He has a good system, but he has no employees assisting him.

3) I simply reached out to him myself and asked him some questions about how he runs that side business.

4) He and I are acquaintances, so I simply discussed aspects of my business plan with him. I do not think that there is an understood "favor" debt between us. 

5) Mr. Croley is a good asset and friend to have because he is a genuinely nice person who is willing to help others selflessly. If I truly needed help, I could count on his help.

Felice Pierce

1) Mrs. Pierce is the creator of Plato's Closet. She founded this organization herself.

2) She would most likely align best with the market expert categorization as she has been in this business for decades now and she has much knowledge about this field.

3) Mrs. Pierce is actually on LinkedIn so I was able to reach out to her and ask her if my elevator pitch would be interesting. 

4) Sadly, she has not responded. I would hesitate to call this any sort of relationship.

5) Having Mrs. Pierce in my network would be an incredible beneficial relationship for me, but not so for her. I would owe her much more in return if she were to foster a relationship than she would owe me.

Lillie Lewis

1) Ms. Lewis is actually a friend of mine to whom I have been selling clothes and buying from for years. She often prefers to shop secondhand because it is more cost effective as well as enabling her to find more unique items.

2) She would be a supplier of mine as I would go to her first with an offer to buy her clothing because I know her taste is decent, meaning that she purchases mid range items and has a fashionable sense of style. 

3) As I said before, Ms. Lewis and I have been friends for years so I simply asked her to watch my elevator pitch and answer a few questions, such as "Would you be interested in this business? As an investor? As a supplier?"

4) We are longtime friends, and we have a good relationship. We both have an accumulated favor debt between us, so I feel comfortable asking for more in "favors".

5) She is great person to use as a customer and "guinea pig" in my business as I know she would forgive blunders and mistakes of mine while still being honest enough to let me know which actions of mine would be unacceptable in a business context.

Reflection. Perhaps the one takeaway from this post would be deliberate conversation and reaching out because life is short so why not? This experience in particular is peculiar given that everything must be over electronic mediums. However, I think that it is grand idea to use all the resources available to propel your business forward including technology, and in that case, this experience prepared me in ways that face to face contact would not. I've done in person networking events, and it is difficult to know who would be the best contact to make as sometimes it is the person you least expect to be an asset who truly is the most valuable. The ability to navigate this with the help of the internet enables me to research much of this person's accomplishments and stake the out before approaching them.