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every city and town in the United States has a Chamber of Commerce whose sole job is to promote commerce. If you call their office, I guarantee you they will give you a list of their members. It may also appear on their web site. Chamber of Commerce members tend to be among the most civic minded in your community and are quite accessible. Finding them on Google is simple: just type in “Chamber of Commerce” with the name of your town or city and Google will find it for you.

➤ Industry Associations

If you are looking for information on a specific industry, business associations can be helpful. As noted, the American Society of Association Executives is a good place to start: www.asaenet.org.

➤ Industry Newsletters and Professional Journals

The targeted readership for these publications means that you can often pick up leads from the authors of the articles by calling them. These authors tend to be industry experts who know everyone.

Looking for start-ups? Then you have to check out startups. alltop.com/ run by none other than Guy Kawasaki of—you guessed it—Apples’ first marketing guru and the author of many of the most useful books on management today.

➤ Web Sites for Conferences, Conventions, or Trade Shows

To find events that are specific to your chosen industry, do a Web search for an industry name and terms such as conference, trade show, or convention (see Figure 4.8).

Figure 4.8 Google search industry.

Figure 4.9 Google search industry links.

Google search industry shows the screen for a Google search for [conference or tradeshow or convention] and the industry, which for this example is medical.

Google’s results reveal 2 large shows. Clicking on the links will bring you the site and a wealth of information (see Figure 4.9).

GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE

Service Corp of Retired Executives (SCORE)

Mark Haluska

SCORE is comprised of both retired and working business executives. These people know decision makers! In many cases, they still work together, go golfing, belong to the same clubs, and mix at socials. So, they personally have a first degree contact with decision makers, many of which are current or past close colleagues.

Most people think of SCORE as a resource (which it in reality is) when you want to get advice to start up a new business venture. But with a little tact, a true guerrilla would turn that inside out to obtain solid leads.

Contact SCORE; ask to speak with an executive who (and this is important) has worked or (most preferably) is working in your profession/industry. They will assume you need business advice. Pleasantly greet them preferably on the phone and tell them you have a problem and thought they would be someone who could help. Then tell the counselor what you really need and do it in this order: tell them what you do then quickly (no more than 1 minute) hit them with quantifiable and truly impressive facts that you’ve outlined on your guerrilla resume. Next, ask how does my experience sound to you?

Then, go for the gusto and ask how you can obtain the specific decision makers’ names and contact information (not human resources, unless you are in human resources) at a given company or companies who could use your expertise to help them solve a pressing problem(s).

This “back door” approach will probably take the counselor by surprise, but that is okay. They have volunteered to join SCORE because they want to help people. SCORE is a free resource that all guerrillas should attempt to use. This tactic can fast track you into a decision-maker’s office and your competition won’t even think about it until they’ve read this book. I highly recommend you find a SCORE representative near you (www.score.org/findscore/index.html).

Contributed by Mark J. Haluska, founder and executive director, Real Time NetWork, www.rtnetwork.net LinkedIn address: www.linkedin.com/in/MarkJ.Haluska.

GUERRILLA TIPS

An immediate way to find hot leads is to ask your friends, family, or business associates who have recently landed a job