When pursuing information for anything, I personally like using the shotgun approach. I email tons of people in the field I am looking for information in, and see what comes back.
Some people will want to pass on helping you, some people won’t even answer back, some might not want to help but give you helpful leads for looking elsewhere, and some people have the answers you are looking for.
You might email one or two companies and be like, “Yes, I have accomplished something!” Umm no. There are more than two companies out there in the field you are looking into, be it manufacturing, information, quotes, etc. Instead of stopping at two, why not do twelve? Or twenty? Or however many companies show up in the Google search?
When you take the shotgun approach, you glean more information, in my opinion.
This is how I found my husband. I was on OKCupid, and I messaged a ton of guys. Nothing outrageous—just the generic “Hi, how are you?”. If they answered back, I looked at their profile more carefully, and tried to start conversation based on something we both had in common. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Then we would set up an actual date, and sometimes it fizzed. With my husband, we clicked online, we clicked in real life, and we have kept on clicking ever since.
What approaches do you use that have worked for gathering information for your business? Do you also use the shotgun approach, or does another strategy work better for you?