Assignment 20A

Person 1

1. I talked to Jim, a co-owner of J&J Tack Shack. He has been a horse owner his entire life and has been an owner and operator of the feed store for over a decade.

2. He is a domain expert. As a person who owns his own feed store, he knows firsthand the prices that are charged for the current brand name show feeds. As an animal owner, he also knows firsthand how hard it can be to pay for these expensive show feeds.

3. Jim is someone that I used to work for, so I have known him for years. I contacted him by calling the main store of the company, where I know his office is located, and asking to speak with him for a few minutes.

4. I presented some of the ideas that I have had towards this plan so far to Jim and asked for his opinion. The return that was implied is that if anything were to come of this company or feed type, that he would be one of the first to know so that he could either prepare to counter it or try to sell some of it in his stores as a vendor.

5. Having someone who has been around the feed industry longer than I would be valuable in many ways, with one of the main ways being having access to more stores across central Florida that I could potentially sell feed out of if a deal were struck.

Person 2

1. The next person that I met with was Jeff. He is a Purina show feed representative.

2. He is a supplier. As someone who has helped create and sell show feeds for at least the last 15 years, he has met with people around the southeastern portion of the country and helped them with their show animal feed concerns.

3. I have met Jeff several times over the last 12 years at various cattle shows. For this particular occasion, we ran into each other at a show that my siblings were at two weekends ago and I talked with him about this idea.

4. The favor that he did for me was give me constructive criticism about the plan and what he would change if he were me. There was no real agreement for how I would repay the favor to him.

5. Jeff is someone that I would be able to talk to about this plan all the way through. Even though he would technically work for a form of a rival company, he is someone that realizes that a small company or mill in one portion of one state is not going to have a real impact on him and Purina, as they are a global brand.

Person 3

1. The third person that I spoke with was Derrell. He is the owner and operator of a custom feed mill that he has run since 1974.

2. He is an expert on the market. In the past, I have worked with him to make custom blends of show feeds for my cattle and have bought other people's custom feeds for swine that he blended.

3. Over the years of buying feeds from his mill, he and I got to know each other relatively well. This initial contact allowed me to reach out to him easily enough and present the idea to him.

4. He gave me more contrastive criticism and told me the things that would be hard to make the plan work. He then told me that if I were to follow through with this plan, he wanted to be my mill. Therefore, the returned favor would be making his company my partner if this venture became real.

5. Derrell is now the person that I would use to manufacture this feed if this plan were to become an actual business and there became a way for me to go about following through with it.

Reflect:

I did not network any different than I have done in the past for the assignment. Instead, I used contacts that I already have and reached out to those people. This will change how I network in the future by simply giving me the experience to approach these types of situations with more confidence and possibly be more effective as a result.