20A Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert in My Industry.
-Bob Pearce, Regional Disaster Officer, Red Cross
-Bob has been with the Red Cross for 14 years holding multiple positions as executive directors of multiple chapters and areas. He has proven himself in many many areas such as staff development and community disaster preparedness.
-He is a domain expert in my proposed business as he and his organization do the same disaster relief and supply distribution I plan on doing.
-I found bob through a little research on the Red Cross' website and narrowed him down to be the ma in charge of my area and the area of my potential clients. I reached out to him via email regarding my questions fro this assignment.
-While not exactly telling him I had a proposed business to compete with his I asked questions regarding to what they do and how they are able to the scale of it. I learned of the warehouses and special steps they take in regards to storm preparation.
-I have learned lots through my communication with him and will be able to apply the knowledge towards my proposed business and future plans.

Expert on your market
-John MacDonald, Director, Levy County Emergency Management
-John MacDonald was previously in the Air Force then served as Fire Chief with the Inglis Fire Department. He has alot of experience in public safety showing this through his many years as a local firefighter and previous years as a emergency manager.
-He is a market expert in my proposed business area as he works for the county  providing relief and managing those resources as well as he is specific to my area in the fact that he is stationed in my county.
-I found John trough a little research on local disasters relief and traced him back to the Levy County Emergency Management website. On that site I dug around and found him as the director.
-I asked him questions pertaining to any specific things the Emergency management center does in the area specifically of rthis area in able to better cater to the residents after a natural disaster. I was able to specialize to the residents in my area after learning these specific details.
I have gained very valuable knowledge pertaining to the residents in my area and how they handle the situations when they arise.

Important Supplier to my industry.
-Tom Smith, President, Customer Development and Sales Operations, Nestle Waters
-Tom Smith has more than 30 years of sales experience as well as having multiple positions within the nestle waters company. He began his career with nestle in 1985.
-Tom fills the supplier role in my business as one of the most important things after a natural disaster is clean bottle water for drinking and other tasks.
-I found Tom after some research on what is essential after a storm and then for various brands that would fit these roles.
-I learned about potential deals in bulk of bottled water through my contact and he seemed interested in the business I was pursuing.
-Having a contact with a bottled water supply company will greatly allow me to cut costs and increase profits passing a lower cost onto he consumer who is in fact the ones in need after a natural disaster.


Going into the future this networking will allow me to be more confident in networking seeing how willing to help these much more knowledgeable and successful people were. Entrepreneurs respect other entrepreneurs in the fact that they all had to start somewhere. This helped and varied from the past in the fact that I was forced to reach out and make new contacts.