I Need Names!

This post will cover a simple topic—an easy way to find businesses who might want your product or service.

There are an unlimited number of online and paper directories that list businesses.  They range from phone books to very specialized lists of specific types of businesses.

The Problem

Your firm provides a service or product and you want to know what companies fall into a niche market you have identified—maybe it’s cleaning services, or IT consultants, or all the large businesses in a certain building (so you can sell them coffee services, copier toner, whatever…). 

You might want to find only companies with more than 25 employees but less than 2000. 

You want to pick zip codes. 

You want to find out as much about them as possible. 

And of course you don’t want to spend a lot of time and money to get this information. 

Online Directories

Most public and academic libraries now offer online resources, either in the library, or from your home or work computer.  If you haven’t checked them out, don’t delay.  There is a wealth of information available.  ( Universities often have many more resources, but you usually must have a student ID number.  Also, if your local library doesn’t offer online databases, try logging onto a larger city library. )

Reference USA

Most public libraries offer Reference USA, which includes a business database with 14 million records, a residential database with 100 million households, as well as databases for healthcare, new businesses, Canadian businesses and international companies. ( For more information about the publisher, a tour of the databases and ideas for searching see www.ReferenceUSA.com.)  Libraries differ on the number of databases available.

I am going to cover the business database, since that is the one that most libraries offer.

Using the quick search option you can specify business name, executive first and last name, city, state and phone.

The custom search screen allows you to quickly select the search parameters you need:

  • company name, executives  (name, title and gender)
  • business type  (keyword, SIC, NAICS and major industry group).  The online tour at www.ReferenceUSA.com  is a good guide to finding groups.
  • geographic area  (state, city, metro area, zip code, radius, county, street address and neighborhood)
  • phone number
  • business size  (number of employees and sales volume)
  • ownership  (public or private firm, headquarters or branch, foreign parent and home-based business)
  • financial data (stock exchange and symbol, credit rating and business expenditures), and
  • special selects  (web address, Fortune 1000 listing, yellow page ad size, years in data base, year established, government office, square footage and number of PCs).

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Search tips and expandable lists are there to help you refine your search.  You can also sort your results and data can be downloaded.

The available records on listed firms hold a great deal of really useful information.  (Remember that the firm itself supplied this information.)

For example:

  • Business expenditures include dollar amounts, telecommunications, advertising, office equipment and supplies, and often much more. A real gold mine of intelligence!
  • Corporate family trees, showing parent firms and subsidiaries
  • UCC filings (Uniform Commercial Code) for loans, liens, judgments and bankruptcies
  • Executive biographies for some entries
  • Photo of their business facility
  • Map and coordinates
  • Nearby businesses (often in the same building)
  • Identify what other businesses are in the area, or using the residential database, how many new homeowners, before locating your business
  • Identify a business doing business under another name.  (Use the address to search)

If your library is large enough to have Business & Company Resource Center database (Gale) by all means look at it.  It does have lots more information about a company’s history. It is also a great place to learn about a new industry.

RefenceUSA may be the best business tool that you have—and it’s FREE!   Enjoy!

Contact Me:  cwilliams@intellhunt.com

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