Finding Business Contacts

Its getting harder and harder now days to get ahold of companies, even if they are in you own industry. It seems you have to jump through hoops to even find out how to get ahold of some companies, many times because their either secretive or just have horrible web designers and marketing staff. In my own experience, its the times you need the contact info the quickest that it seems to disappear. In reality, there are several ways to get ahold of these companies, whether it takes willpower or not.

The first and most simple is whois servers. There is several times a week I go to the whois server of a company I'm trying to do an article on to scan for usable contact info. To break this down in an understandable way, companies register their websites with the companies actual business info, while it may be hidden on their site it is still stamped on their server registry information. Most often I use http://www.who.is/ which is both simple and provides the most info. With its different tabs I can see the sites old info and even the contact info that is in contact forms.

Sometimes there are downfalls to this plan, because companies will hide their server info. The next way is press releases. Big companies hate being contacted by virtual nobodies, but absolutely love being in the media, so they send out press releases. The problem with that plan for them is that often times press releases are required to contain media contact info... which can be used to contact the company as well. For this, I search google for something along the lines of " 12345 inc. press release." This is usually a media contact, but leaves a usable address and a contact that can transfer your message.

At this point if you can still not get ahold of the company you're attempting to contact, it is either not meant to be or you could just ask a friend or colleague that has worked with the company (which you have hopefully already tried). With this info, you should be able to get alot more business done with the companies you want to work with. Please don't use this to go off and contact lil wayne or anybody, he probably has his hidden. Enjoy and go do some business!