20A - Growing Your Social Capital

1. Domain Expert in the industry: Martin Amado (Owner of  "The WOW Factor!" home design company and host of the Miami Channel 10 "Soflo Home Project" Show)
Martin Amado has been an expert in furniture design for many years and as such would serve to be an excellent contact when it comes to learning about the industry. While he himself has never owned a furniture company or store, he is the owner of a home design company and has done home makeovers and tours for several years. As such, he is an excellent contact to have as I will easily know what people of every budget are looking for, as well as how to style my furniture for any purpose. Funnily enough, I've known Martin for a bit over a year now because my father recently became the lead producer and editor of the aforementioned Soflo Home Project show. The exchange we had was brief, but the "favor" he did for me was give me a few furniture tips, for instance, pieces cannot be simply bland, as no one will be enticed buy them, however, they cannot be overly flashy either as they would suck the attention out of a room. My pieces have to be marketed in such a way, that they affordable, but not cheap, and liven up the room, without being overly flashy. Because we've worked together on the show, on occasion, there isn't much of an expectancy for a "return" per say, however, he is curious to see where this concept goes. Finally, he will serve to boost my market, because of the copious amounts of experience he has with working with furniture; I can trust is opinions and advice. Furthermore, he is a known name in the furniture design industry, meaning if I ever did use his name, it would be an excellent contact and serve as a guarantee that my concept is backed by a true expert.

2. Expert in the market: Lauren Jones (Client Relations Specialist for Southern Furniture Leasing Inc.)
Lauren Jones is an employee for a big furniture leasing firm known as Southern Furniture Leasing; (and is unfortunately an FSU graduate.) She has worked as a client relations specialist in the company for almost two years now and understands how to work with her customers. I found her through her LinkedIn page as I was searching for people who work in the marketing department for furniture rental companies. Seeing as we're both Floridian students, I decided to give contacting her a shot. After a quick phone call, I'd gotten a bit more information on how to work with my potential customers and retailers. When it comes to customers, she said, it's important to appeal to them in whatever way you can. It's important to act like a car salesman, but not look or sound like one. What she meant by this was, to find what your customer wants, amplify that and assure them that they are correct, it's usually easy to sell to people that way. On the more company side, she admitted that she didn't know a whole lot, but what she explained certainly helped. She explained that when marketing to a retailer who's been doing similar things for years, it can be difficult to "get in with them." The most important things are selling them on why they need your product (making it unique,) and more importantly, why you can get it to them cheaper than anyone else. When it came to why I was asking, I merely posed that I was a student looking to create some concepts in the industry, not really disclosing too much information, (especially not that I am a UF student, considering she is an extreme fan of the Seminole team,) so there isn't an expectancy for a "return." As for how she will enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity, I cannot see many ways. She's extremely new in her present company and has little experience elsewhere, apart from her advice, I doubt she will prove useful later.

3. Expert supplier: Kari Scott (Human Resources Manager for U.S. Lumber)
Kari Scott is the Human Resources Manager for U.S. Lumber, a lumber provider for many companies throughout the United States. Most of these companies for construction or furniture based, similar to the market I'm looking for. Similar to Lauren Jones, I found Kari on LinkedIn, when searching for the employees of U.S. Lumber. I found her to be the most efficient as she was both accessible as well as a good judge of character considering her position in the company. As such, I reached out to her to ask her about the general operations of the company. Particularly the process of selling and shipping lumber. Considering I may need to work with this company in the future, it would be a good fit. To summarize our conversation, she explained that there haven't been new major entrants for a while, but the process would be consistent shipping orders followed by personal meetings and contacts to establish a relationship between companies. Once the company is confident that they can supply you with lumber that you will properly reimburse them for, then bulk discounts and regular shipping can come into play. This information was rather useful as I wasn't aware of the process in which retailers and designers acquire their raw materials until now. This contact may also come into play later if I do end up pursuing this opportunity further; I now have a means of acquiring raw materials.

After working on this assignment for a few days now, I understand just how difficult it is to get into contact with people. The first contact I had was readily available, but the other two took quite a bit of searching. I called quite a number of people who either didn't answer, were busy at the time, or were doing work and didn't have time to answer my questions. With this experience, I take away who I should target first when it comes to my contacts; never contact the people in charge of all operations as they are too busy, but at the same time, never contact low level or just employed workers, as they aren't familiar with the trade yet, (this can show in my second contact.) Lastly, this majorly differed from my networking experiences in the past, as I mainly spoke with consumers, never producers, experts, and suppliers. However, these people provided much more insight than my consumers could have, (granted it's in different areas, but that's besides the point.) Also, these new contacts may have use in the future with any opportunities I wish to seek out.