Growing Your Social Capital

Domain: One of my friends who goes to Elon University found that the hours the dining halls were open weren’t very convenient for him. He decided to try to make a change by talking to the school about it. I talked to my friend over the phone to see how he was going about trying to fix the problem at his school. He gave me information about it if I would get him a McDonald’s burger when we get home from school. Using this insight, I will be better able to try and approach the school with my idea.

Market: My Dad’s friend works at a college and knows the details of how the food places work. After talking to him he told me reasons of why the companies may not want to extend hours but he reassured me that it is possible because they do talk about extending hours occasionally. He told me all this information for free but said it would be nice if I did some yard work for my dad in exchange. Using this information, I have reassurance that the school would indeed be willing to change things up.

Supplier: One of the managers at Chick-Fil-A on campus told me that she works with the school with the hours of her store. She told me how it might be easy to get them to extend their hours on Saturday since they are closed on Sundays. She said that it could be possible if I keep working on it and gathering people to support my idea. She gave me all this insight for the promise that I would continue to eat Chick-Fil-A often. Using this information, I am reassured that my favorite restaurant could potentially be open for longer hours on Saturdays.

I think that this experience has helped shape my networking process because I have realized that a lot more people than I previously thought are interested in my idea. I am now more confident in my idea and will continue to work on it so I can prepare it to be presented to the school. This experience was different than others because I was talking to people that actually had pull on the topic and could either help change things or have experience in this field.