Growing My Social Capital

The first person I networked with is Mr. Sean Martin.  Mr. Martin is in charge of vending machine distribution for Nabisco in Florida. This person is an expert in the domain that correlates with my product. While the product he is in charge of is different than mine, the service he provides relates to my product, as my product will be placed strictly in vending machines. I found this person by emailing my old boss from my job back home, and asked him how we got the vending machine for our store, as well as who he contacted and or who contacted him to get the vending machine. He explained that the vending machine was separate than the distributor, and that the distributor actually contacted him to get Nabisco snacks in the vending machine, as opposed to others. My old boss gave me his email and said he would let him know I would be contacting him in regards to an assignment I have for my entrepreneurship in college. I emailed him and explained to him the assignment, and my product. The favor he did for me was giving me some good advice and knowledge about how to get your company’s product in vending machines. His advice he gave me when it comes to getting your product in vending machines is that you have to give good reasoning and evidence that your product will produce a positive benefit by being in the vending machine, and that the profits will benefit which ever company you are trying to land a contract with to keep your products in their vending machines at their organization.  Including this person in my networking enhances my opportunity by having a contact that has access to contacts of organizations that have vending machine products.

The second person I networked is my cousin Jon’s coworker, Bradley Ogden.  I actually got the chance to talk to him in person earlier this week when I went home Bradley is a graduate of Duke University, where he majored in marketing, which is the “slot” he fills for this assignment. He currently has a job with a small electronic company back in Clearwater called Loft technology, where he markets their computer and other electronic products. He targets a similar audience and age group mine does, which is why I used him as a contact. The favor he did for me was give me advice on marketing a product, as well as saying that if I select marketing as my career path when I declare a major in the business school, that I have the possibility of an internship, pending my grades and involvement during school.  His return expectation is that I do well in school and actually try and take my product to market.  This contact has enhanced my opportunity by the possibility of an internship as well as marketing information and lessons.

The final person I networked with was one of my fraternity brothers parents, Gerard Zubka. Mr. Zubka works for Bose, and serves as the supplier of their headphones and other products to stores such as Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and smaller electronic organizations.   This contact was by far the best one I networked with because he is working the exact same product that I plan on putting in my vending machines.  I was able to talk to Mr. Zubka on the phone and we had a pretty solid discussion. He told me that if my product ever took off and branched into other gym’s and areas where higher quality headphones have the potential to be purchased, he would get Bose headphones in the machines.  This would most likely take many years to achieve however, but this possibility gave me a very big drive to pursue my product.   This contact enhances my opportunity by having someone familiar with my product and is interested in potentially working together.

This experience showed me that there are many people out there that you can network with, all you have to do is reach out and give yourself the chance to find the opportunity.  All these people I found were through people I already knew, and I had no idea that any of them existed before this other than my friend’s father. There is a chance that I could just be lucky and happen to know the right people with the right connections, but I personally believe anyone has the same access to people to network with that can benefit them, all you have to do is reach out and make that initial contact with someone.