Growing My Social Capital

1. Domain Expert- I spoke with Wendy Pham for this section of the assignment. Wendy has owned many different salons in Jacksonville, FL over the last ten years, ranging from in her little apartment to full scale salon space with up to ten employees. So she has much experience in the salon business. A family friend of mine suggested her, so I contacted her over the phone. I did my elevator pitch and she really liked it! Her only suggestion was to maybe slim down on all of our provided services, as this may make things a little complicated when preparing for our appointments. She also said to maybe charge a mandatory traveling fee to pay for gas. Her expertise was very helpful and I promised to come and get my nails done soon. I know that I can call her and ask her anything from now on.
2. Market Expert- I think spoke with Pam, who has much experience in the food truck business over the past 10 years in Jacksonville, FL. Food trucks are mobile and move around all of the time, which is very similar to my mobile salon. A mutual friend connected us through email and she was really helpful. I gave her my elevator pitch and she had pretty much all positive things to say. She suggested that in addition to doing house calls, we also set up at festivals and rallies around town. This would probably get us a lot of additional business. Pam also confirmed that gas won't cost nearly as much as a lease. So her expertise was extremely helpful and I now have more confidence in Beauty To Go.
3. Supplier Expert- Lastly, I went to Victoria Nail and Beauty Supply and spoke with the manager, Jessica. It is one of the largest nail and beauty supply stores in Jacksonville right now. Jessica was pretty helpful. She suggested buying everything online, as it saves you the time and gas of coming all the way out there. She also suggested buying in bulk because it will save me money. Jessica was helpful in informing me on how the buying process would go and around how much everything would cost. This gave me a good idea in my head of how things would go. 

Reflect- This networking exercise was very different, in my opinion. I actually had to actively look for salon experts and try to get them to listen and give me advice. It was actually pretty hard. A lot of people didn't answer or didn't want to help. But it helped me to kind of figure out a way to approach people with the topic and ease into it. All of these networking assignments are making me much more confident in talking to others and getting advice along the way.