1)
One person must be a domain expert in your
industry.
For
my contact in my industry I reached out to a fellow young entrepreneur Dominick.
He owns a similar business to my idea and wanted his help in figuring out the
best way to go about starting a business. I found Dominick through a mutual
friend here at the university of Florida and sent him an email. Dominick has
been very helpful to me through his knowledge and wisdom and in return he
expects me to help his brand awareness by networking. Dominick is a great ally
who has a lot of contacts in the industry. They say its not what you know but
who you know.
2)
One person must be an expert on your
market.
My
market contact is named Scott. He is a real veteran who has run his own
business locally for over 30 years. As someone who has lived and operated a
business in Gainesville for so many years, Scott knows my target market well. I
found Scott through an online ad and reached out to him over email. Scott is a
very genuine person and did not want anything in return for helping me. He is a
great contact to have because he has been around the city so long that he knows
the ins and outs of running a business in Gainesville.
3)
One person must be an important supplier to
your industry.
For my supplier I
reached out to a fiend Michael who orders large quantities of umbrellas on the
Internet. He has been doing this for years so his knowledge is vast. I contacted
Michael by talking to him because I live with him. He is going to be a part of
the business with me so he will get to split the profits with me. Including Michael
will be a huge help and will allow me to focus on the marketing while he
focuses on the supply.
Reflect
This experience will
definitely help me down the line when trying to network. This was different to
networking in the past because I had never had to look for such specific
people. I cannot wait to network more and grow my network.
Hi James! After reading over your brief interviews with your experts, I think you have made a good position to strongly hold up your business idea. Not only did you gain advice form these people, but they are also offering you help in building what you have already started. I think you did exactly what you were supposed to in a networking sense and it sounds like it is going to help you substantially in the near future.
ReplyDeleteHi James, I think you did a good job of getting people who would be helpful with the growth of your product. I believe that having friends that are in the industry can go a long way because the more people you know, the more opportunities for partnerships. Finding someone like your friend Michael could be very important as he can help with the production and getting the umbrellas. Good Job.
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