20A Growing Your Social Capital

1. The first person that I talked to was for the domain expert category of the assignment. I could not find anyone that I could talk to that actually owned a gym, but I did, however, talk to someone that works at a gym and has been for a long time. I had them look at my idea napkin and asked them what their thoughts were on the idea. The return that I got from this person was them telling what they thought about it and any advice that they may give me. Including this person in my network is extremely valuable to me because they have worked at a gym for a while and seen how it works. he's seen people argue over whether they were using the machine or not. Basically he is able to tell me more about first hand experience in dealing with the problem. 

2. The next person that I interviewed is for the market expert category. This person does not market to gyms, but instead works for the same company that my dad works for which is a big electronics distribution company. Any type of electronics you can think of they distribute to other companies in the southeastern part of the US to sell, so he knows a lot about bringing in new customers for his company. I think this was a perfect person to talk to because he has first hand experience with doing research on smaller companies that they could sell to and benefit from. 

3. The last person that I talked to is for the supplier and he works at the same company that mentioned in the previous paragraph. This person however is in charge of getting all the electronics and shipping them out the companies that they are selling them to. This person would also be a great addition to my network because he has been doing for many years and would be able to tell me exactly how it works and the best way to go about doing it. 

This was definitely a great networking experience even though 2 out of the 3 people I talked to did not work or sell to the industry that my idea deals with. I had never really done anything like this before though and it was a great experience to talk to two people strictly about business and what they do that works and what they have done in the past that has not worked. I think this will really help me in my future career.