I think I’m a Tuesday/Thursday kind of girl–those days always seem the most productive for me and my business. Today was extremely productive (hooray!). I know I keep going on and on about finding the right schedule but I really believe that if I experiment enough with different scheduling strategies, I’ll see an improvement in my work.
Last night I started my new ritual of “Research Before Bed.” I turn on the TV (last night I think I did a mixture of Friends reruns, Sex And The City reruns and Talk Soup on E!), and I look up phone numbers and websites. Sounds like a party, doesn’t it? Well, it’s completely necessary for starting a new business with not-so-many contacts in the right areas. I wish I had a database of career counselors and internship coordinators built into my brain, but I don’t. So I sat in front of the television for about two hours and looked up names in Google and Yp.Yahoo.com (Yahoo’s Yellow Pages). The sad truth is that by doing that I was only about 50 percent accurate–if that.
This morning, I sat in front of my computer answering my morning e-mails and calling all of the companies from my list. It felt nice and productive to have number after number to call. I didn’t have to pause after each call to look up the next one.
I had coffee today with a friend and college publisher/expert who told me about Jigsaw.com, a database of contacts that you can purchase. I checked into it and my question is– is it worth it to purchase contacts off a site like this? What if the contacts are outdated and incorrect, and my e-mails are just sent to the dark side? On the other hand, my random e-mails would reach more people if I sent them to massive numbers of HR directors and internship coordinators at the same time. Any ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?
Tonight I have another huge list to go home with. We’ll see how long it takes.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 7:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Online Business, Work, Social Networking, Starting a Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.One Response to “Research Before Bed. Is There a Better Way?”
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July 17th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Hi Lauren,
I too am now researching before bed, searching for ideas.
The mass email may work and is worth a test I think. The subject header is most important and you may wish to test a sample with one heading and then try and another subject with another heading and test the respsonse.
If you got a bit of investment I would personally recommend tryign to hire like a home worker from india who can research more personal contacts and suitable contacts. You can find one via getafreelancer.com.
I have worked with people from Asia via email and phone and it works very well, especially in datent a collecting kind of work. Small investment like $10 a day max, and saves lot of time and stress. He or she may have different ideas to support you also.
Using as many people possible to help is alwways best I think and has made my business grow faster. I am a similar age to you and this helped me over last 2 years after graduating.
This is what i would do and may be worth a test for one month.
I have a mass email list of newspaper emails from uk and usa if it helps.?
I would be keen to know what you think.
Thanks Lauren
Tommy
England.