20A – Growing Your Social Capital
For this assignment I emailed three people who could help me understand how to sell my ZipStrip. Because I have three different groups of customers I want to market to for this assignment I focused on only the "Fan" group.
Supply Expert: Pamela Braseth
Dragon Sports founder
Pam is an family friend and gave me my two first jobs, so I have a lot of experience asking her for favors. She also was the owner of a triathlon store and sold the team caps, suits, jackets, and shirts to all the local swim teams in my area which makes her the only person I know with experience acting as a supplier for sports teams. My favor to her was a list of questions about how, when, and who buys these team merch items. Is it just for the swimmers? Do the parents and family members want their own shirts? How were the items branded to the teams (team colors, logos, mascots, slogans...)? In asking for this information I promised to make a set of Dragon Sports ZipStrips as a bribe for her cooperation if my idea took off. I think Pan is a Great expert to add as a business contact becasue she has years of small business experience and knows me enough to possibly help and support a venture I start.
Market Expert: Nicole Yucht
Special Projects, Strategic Communications & Marketing at UF Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing
I emailed Ms. Yucht after a long attempt to find people responsible for creating UF branded products and deciding how to market the university. I explained my product idea, that I would really like to make UF branded ZipStrips, and asked questions regarding the process of how to make official college merchandise. If she responds I hope to learn about how to work with the college in a creative way as well as make something new to show team spirit.
Domain Expert: Robert Blake
UF Bookstore Director
I messaged Mr. Blake to ask about the buying behaviors for people wanting to tout the UF brand as well as what I should do to get a product in his store in the future. I had a very difficult time finding contact information for management at the Bookstore, and was about to go get on a bus to see in person, but I found his name in a staff list and looked up his email on the employee directory. Gaining contacts inside Uf will be a helpful way to make sure we get Gator ZipStrips and I was very interested in what he has noticed about the purchase habits of my "Fan" customers.
Reflection:
I think this assignment forced me to go looking for real professionals who could help me turn my idea into a reality. As I explored for experts I also found a few custom clothing manufacturers so I plan to order a real professionally made ZipStrip prototype by the end of the class (I don't think I have time before the next pitch video or I would have pushed for that). This was a great practice for networking because it felt real and active as opposed to the theoretical benefits of networking I hear about most when people talk about how you never know who you will meet or what they can do for you.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI really liked the attention to detail and organization of this post, and the information you provided in this post. I think you were able to share valuable information about your product, and the people you were able to incorporate into your interviews for the added success of your venture. However, i wish you were able to explain more about your product and its functionality further throughout this assignment. Overall, good job!
I think you chose three excellent resources for your networking interviews. I would like to have known what each of your resources responses were. It appears that you were not able to hear back from them. I hope you continue to reach out to these resources to get the feedback you were searching for.
ReplyDelete