Photo by Barry Schwartz
The eternal quest for the entrepreneur (and in-house entrepreneurs otherwise known as sales people): how to find leads?
One way is to let clients – and potential clients – lead you to their peers. The bios on their personal or company website will often list places employees used to work. Companies also may list other companies they’ve worked with, and those companies might list people and companies they’ve worked with. It just goes on and on.
All potential clients.
Magazines, newspapers, and news-oriented and trade-specific websites are great. See an article about a company or an announcement about award winners in a field you’re interested in? Potential clients. Working backwards is great: see a project you like? Who did it? A potential client.
Social media: Linkedin, Facebook, all those sites whose specialized audience is looking to hire people in your trade may reveal other companies you can approach. Organizations are great: lists of members, articles about people and companies, lists of award winners…all good for research.
Lead yourself on.