20. It's About Who You Know

Domain Expert in the Industry:

This person is someone who is in the market as well and owns a company doing similar work.  However, since you cannot run every single campaign in a county, there is a large enough market to where we are not competitors.  He has been in business for a few years now and have a pretty good record in the field.  He is a graduate of the University of Florida and have a doctorate in political science.  He also teaches at USF, so his education also makes him an expert in the field.

I have known him for a couple years now and have developed a relationship with him because he is the Chair of the Young Republicans in Citrus County.  Because we have worked on things through that, I have added him to my social capital.  We met going to the Citrus REC meetings and working on campaigns in the 2016 race.

We have not done any favors for each other yet, but I know that either of us could call and ask something of the other.  I do not think that you need to do any favor for a person to solidify your relationship and use them as social capital.  I know that if I ever needed information on starting they would be able to help me navigate the process.

Having this person in my social capital helps me because it is literally politics that we are working in.  That is the most social networked industry that I can think of.  This goes for donations, votes, development, and having a greater social capital.  Knowing him will possibly help me gain a partner on some projects in the future or work different avenues to be most effective.

Expert in the Market:

This person is the Regional Coordinator for the Trump Victory team (including both Alachua County and my home county of Citrus).  He worked with the campaign in the 2016 election and has a bigger role now.  He graduated from a college in New York and is now trying to get into law school.

I met this person this year while at a Citrus REC meeting.  That night I gave him my phone number because he wanted me to work with his team in Alachua County.  We have now been working together for almost two months and have been developing a solid relationship that way.

Like I said, I have been working with him for the last two months.  Because of this exchange, I have gained a lot of social capital with him.  By volunteering to do voter registration, door knocking, events coordination, and other various tasks, not only am I gaining skills, but I am building value for him.  As we get bigger and more prominent in the campaign, I would think this comes with benefits from them.  Their recognition of our efforts would be incredible and I suspect that is what may happen.

Working with a national campaign rather than just local campaigns will help me build different relationships that I may need in the future.  If I can get a few national contacts, I can build myself up behind the scenes and work for the right people.  If I could exploit this I think that it would greatly benefit me in my aspirations.  

Supplier to the Industry:

This person is a state-wide consultant who does not manage campaigns, but does a lot of graphic work, scripting, emails, letters, palm cards, and mailers.  He has a much more extensive knowledge in these areas than I do.  I know that he has been working in the industry for years and manages several PACs around the state.  He has a large social capital that could benefit me in the future.

I actually just met him during this election cycle because the campaign that I am managing contracted him to do some of our consultation.  He has helped me complete the palm card and we will be working on a personal letter to members of the community soon.  I met him once at a meeting in Citrus so that we could establish contact.  He has been working with my client for almost 10 years now, so they have a pretty good relationship and I am working on having one with him.  We text, call, and email frequently which is helping us develop a better relationship.

Once again, because he is getting paid, I do not think that we have done favors necessarily, but we have done work for the campaign.  So, we understand the reason we are working together to get projects done and I suspect that we will work even closer together for future campaigns.  The better we develop our relationship this election cycle the easier time we will have on future campaigns.

Because he has a network around the entire state, he is a valuable resource to have.  My opportunity would be expanding to different areas in the state.  Because he does not do much of the hands-on work with campaigns, he may pass my contact along to help people with a more readily available boots on the ground contact and still use him for other consultation purposes.  Knowing him may help me grow in the market and learn different aspects of what clients are looking for when they run in these races.

Reflection:

I really like networking, but I think that a lot of it is superficial.  There is not much that actually leads to real connections.  Over the years, I have probably handed out around 400-500 business cards, but do not consider everyone I have given them to as part of my social network.  So this experience has been unique because I got to reflect on the relationships that I have and how I can use them to my advantage as I expand in the future.  If you know how valuable your assets are then you can better work with them and utilize them.  Like Dr. Pryor said, we neglect our social network which does not make sense because it is probably one of the most valuable things that we have.  With that being said, I am curious how networking like this could be done on a greater scale.  Rather than just developing contact with three people, why not develop an entire rolodex using this method.  I may have to do that because it will help me expand faster and really learn the industry.