Contact #1 Mr. Leiheiser
This person owns a small ice-cream shop that offers drinks. As the owner of this small business, he is familiar with the supplies he requires and the laws he must be in compliance with. As such, they fill my domain expert bucket. I found this contact as he is an old school mate's father and his shop is in my home town. I contacted him by going to the shop. His favor was providing me with feedback. For now, our hometown is plastic straw friendly. However, Ponte Vedra is a beach town and I anticipate that a ban is in our future. I returned the favor by recommending the shop on my Instagram story, which around 500 people see. Mr. Leinheiser is a friend of our town and is friends with many of the important execs that take up residence in PVB.
Contact #2 Mr. Murphy
Mr. Murphy is a high up exec of a distribution organization. He is an expert on supplier relations and the process of sourcing and distributing materials. As such, he fills the important supplier category. I contacted him through email, as my father is his friend and passed on his contact. He offered to meet with me and discuss the process that goes about for the supply of a product in return for intern recommendations. Mr. Murphy knows many other suppliers and companies in the greater Jacksonville area.
Contact #3 Mr. Shitama
Mr. Shitama works for a plastics company that makes and distributes plastic lids. I met him because he is my college friend's dad and lives in Gainesville. As such, he fills the market expert domain. He is also familiar with the plastic-straw ban that is in Gainesville. As he works on a national level, this has not extremely affected him. He was happy to talk to me for the sake of education and asked for nothing in return. He was able to explain to me the nature of sales relations and how they source clients. As they are a large operation, they work mostly with commercial entities.
This exercise provided a challenge that let me understand the tools I have in my own backyard. This also gave me the courage to ask questions, because most of the time people are happy to talk about themselves and their work. This was different from previous experiences because some of them had to happen over email. However, this allowed me to practice my professional writing.
Kelly,
ReplyDeleteI liked your comment about having the courage to ask questions. If you don't ask about what you don't know, you will never learn anything. And of course, our favorite topic of conversation is usually ourselves. In addition, learning to write for business is a key skill that will really pay off in the future. Mr. Shitama seems to be a person that you should really get to know.
Hey Kelly,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post! You did a great job with picking out your experts for the industry and your product. Mr. Shitama sounds like a very resourceful person because he is dealing with the plastic straw ban in Gainesville first hand. It's great how many people you were able to contact easily. I agree with you when you said that this gave you courage to ask questions. People do love talking about themselves and their businesses, so it's just up to us to get out of our comfort zones and ask them questions. Great job!
Hey Kelly,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on this blog post! It sounds like you definitely used your resources correctly in order to gain valuable knowledge about what this product could become. I think it is great that you gained courage to ask questions. Sounds like this helped a lot, great job.