My goal is to open a all-star cheerleading gym.
#1
Brian Cartier- Owner of UKnight and is a cheer coach at UCF. He has also owned 4 other cheerleading gyms and ran many programs.
Domain expert. Brian has owned many cheer gyms and been in the industry for 20+ years
Found and contacted though facebook.
He was extremely friendly and gave me a lot of good insight on where to start. He suggested that I start coaching and doing private lessons to build up a clientele.
Including Brian in my network enhances my ability to exploit an opportunity by having the chance to learn from someone who has already been through it and has a lot of insight.
#2
Mike Pare- Director of UCA All-Star/Varsity Footwear. Former owner of Spirit Cheer.
Market expert. Mike's companies sell apparel and shoes to cheerleading athletes, as well as, host competitions and events for the industry.
Found through google, contacted through email.
He was very helpful in answering all of my questions and even said I could go to their headquarters to check it out if I wanted to. I wish I would have asked more questions but I did not want to overwhelm him into not responding.
Including Mike in my network enhances my ability to exploit an opportunity by getting a different aspect of the industry and hopefully creating room for a future collaborative working relationship.
#3
Darci Brammer- Runs Darbie Designs.
Supplier. Darci sells custom cheer accessories such as, bows, shirts, megaphones, etc.
Contacted through phone.
She had very good advice on how to build clientele. She explained to me how she has contacts with many different programs and how she will sometimes do favors for people hoping that they will say good things about her services to others which in turn would hopefully drive business up.
Including Darci in my network enhances my ability to exploit an opportunity by using the tips she gave me on how to build clientele on future ventures of mine.
Reflection
The more I do these interviews, the more comfortable I get. Reaching out is intimidating but I learned that it is a part of the journey and hopefully one day I will get the opportunity to return the favor to other young entrepreneurs. This experience and all of the others shape me into being a better communicator and learning what type of questions to ask in order to receive the answers I want. Practice makes perfect and there is still so much to learn.
Hey Sarah,
ReplyDeleteWhen I was first reading this I was confused because you haven't really discussed a cheerleading gym up until this point, but I like how you found good contacts for this assignment. I agree that reaching out is intimidating and that the only way to get more comfortable is to just do it. What's the worst that could happen?
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI think you did a really good job at networking and contacting these individuals to get useless information from them. Through your questions, I see you were able to develop solid foundations on clients and how to build relations with customers. Through my networking, I was about to figure out concepts such as how to market and idea and how to properly appeal to a demographic. Networking allows us to recruit other people's good ideas and advance our own.
Hello Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI very much admire your courage when reaching out to these people. I agree it can be very intimidating and nerve wracking to contact complete strangers. I used my parents in order to find useful contacts so there was at least a known contact between us which made me feel more comfortable. I am sure with time you will grow even more comfortable and it will be easy to expand your network.