1. Stacy, Domain Expert
Stacy is the co-founder of a small company I've been interning with this summer, and she has several years experience in the field of social media and consulting for different businesses, including large banks such as Barclays. Stacy fills the domain expert slot because she currently owns a company dealing with social media and she used to work as a consultant for several other businesses in other areas of the business world. I found Stacy after I began my internship with her company, and I work with her very often so I was able to learn more about who she was and what she's done. There's no expectation, other than that I do my assigned tasks properly and on-time. Including Stacy in my network will allow me to meet more people in that area of the industry and potentially help me find employment in the future.
2. Delphine, Market Expert
Delphine also works for the small company I'm interning with this summer, and she has several years of experience working on social media aspects of various companies since graduating from university over a decade ago. Now she specializes in targeting companies in the industry that require her company's services the most. Delphine also works for the company I'm interning with, so I was able to talk to her about this assignment in-person after learning more about her. Since I am her co-worker, there was no expectation set for getting something in return. Delphine is very good at her job, and she will be very helpful in giving me advice about future endeavors when I leave the company at the end of the summer.
3. David, Supplier
David, too, works for the company I'm interning with this summer, and he specializes in contacting other companies to sell my company's services on a B2B level. David is a similar age to me, but from a completely different background and has much more technical experience than I do, at least as of right now. Since David works for the same company, like the others, no expectation was set, except for getting him a cup of coffee next time we're in the office. Having David in my network will be very helpful because he's gone through many of the same things that I have, and more, and I hope to learn a lot from him.
I think this experience will make my goals at future networking events become a little bit more clear and defined, versus just talking to as many people as I can, for no particular reason. I think that may be the main difference from events in the past, in that I simply didn't have well-defined goals previously.
It's nice that you didn't have trouble finding people to help you with this assignment. I like how you mention well-defined goals. I've heard one thing all successful people have in common is having short and long term goals. Of course to have goals that are useful they must be well-defined or else you are not really sure what you are working towards. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteDavid seems like a great person to get advice from regarding what has helped him succeed in marketing to customers in a B2B environment. He can also share valuable feedback regarding roadblocks he has encountered. He can probably relate stories about how he has overcome some of those objections. It might also be interesting to pay close attention to problems he has not been able to overcome, as these could represent opportunities for creating competitive advantage
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you’ve been able to meet a lot of great people and connections with your internship! I similarly have a “David” type contact, but for my assignment, I used him as the Domain Expert because of the connections he has. It sounds like you’ve made some nice connections so I’d definitely try to save them and use them to help you!
ReplyDeleteDavid, it's nice that you have all of these close contacts that you can easily reach out to about your business idea! As you know, it's all about networking and who-you-know so keep these contacts from your internship for potential support in the future! Great work.
ReplyDeleteYou could really take advantage of your situation by learning a little more about the process of how they each go about their jobs. Especially with the last guy, David, who as you said is much more technical than you are. Learning a little at a time and showing your eagerness to expand your capabilities to be able to do what they do could really benefit you and the company as a whole.
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