Friday, July 13, 2018

20A - Growing Your Social Capital


I was tasked to meet three people that could increase my networking potential. I connected with Maria Senkovskaya, Juan Cruz, and Walter Jenkins.
Maria Senkovskaya is a sales representative at the Orlando Auto Auction (supplier). I walked into the auction and she came up to me and asked if I needed any help. I pitched her my idea and received favorable feedback. She didn’t look at me as a threat to her business, she saw me as a potential opportunity. When I left, she made sure to give me her business card and asked that I contact her when I was looking for a car for someone.
Juan Cruz is the finance manager of a local Honda dealership (market expert). He was referred to me by Maria Senkovskaya. I explained my idea and asked for help in the negotiations process. He told me to always be on the lookout for programs being run by the credit unions. He said that they get some of the best interest rates. He said he didn’t want anything, but I brought him some doughnuts on the following Saturday for all of his help. He was surprised and thrilled at the prospect of free doughnuts on a Saturday morning (their busy day).
Walter Jenkins is a sales representative for a local used car outlet (domain expert). It turns out that Maria sells cars to Walter to re-distribute at his dealership. He was a little more willing to listen to me as I walked in on a slow day. I think that his advice is the opposite of what I should take as he saw me as a threat to business (selling cars is a little cutthroat).
I think that Maria and Juan could really help me supply and finance cars for my clientele, but I will not ask Walter for a thing. I just don’t trust him. Looking forward, this could be a useful exercise to periodically undertake just to expand my ability to meet customer needs.
20Ac-20

No comments:

Post a Comment