Re: Bringing in the leads--contract work

[Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Cold-calling. Its depressing, but its the only way to get in the door. You
have to market yourself and services to every company in town. 

The best way to get leads is to get your hands on a copy of the local
chamber of commerce directory or the local Business Journal's book of
lists.  Then start systematically going through the book and contacting
companies. 

The other  thing that helps is to determine some penetration strategies.
If you call the main number of most companies, the receptionists will just
route you into somebody's voice mail and you'll get ignored. You need
names of people. Ideally, shoot as high as you can. Chief Technology
Officers or Operations Directors are a good place to go. You may want to
solicit directly to Tech Pubs Managers, but I always had better luck
shooting above them to executive-level people. But don't shoot too high.
Don't call up asking for the President or CEO. That kind of stuff is
public knowledge and easily accessible. I love it when bad salesmen call
my firm and ask for our CEO. I know they just pulled it off the web site.

Getting into companies is not easy. Persistence is important. You also
need to be somewhat of a detective and begin scouring on-line resources
for names. One of the best resources out there is good old Google or
dejanews.  Scour the net for information about companies that sound
interested and begin targeting them for mass marketing. 

Marketing is a game of numbers. You call 100 people, maybe 1 or 2 will be
interested in what you have. 

Also, go rent Glengarry Glenross. That will get you into the mood of a
salesman. :-) 

Good Luck

Andrew Plato 

"Bill Burns" <wdburns -at- mindspring -dot- com> wrote in message
news:131620 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 
> 
> Well, it was a dismal month. I started strong in September after I was
laid 
> off from Scriptorium, but the contract work seems to have dried up. I
say 
> "seems" because I suspect that I'm simply not getting the word to the
right 
> people, and some of my colleagues who've been at it for a while are
keeping 
> busy. For those of you who have been freelancing for a while, what do
you 
> do to generate leads? How do you determine which companies are good 
> prospects--especially when they don't seem to know what they need? What
are 
> your favorite resources (web based and other) for locating contracts and

> clients?

> 
> 

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