Me and a few other former Microsoft employees have started our own consultancy company.
What we did as a first step was to crawl through all our microsoft inboxes and plug anyone we have worked with in a CRM. We managed to get a few projects because of this, but in many cases people just don’t reply and one can only follow up x many times.
What do you guys think would be our best next step? We are currently finishing our website and had planned to hire somebody to help us generate leads using both email and LinkedIn. Is this a good approach or do u have any better ideas?
What type of consultancy are you providing? Large-scale / long-term contracts? Or smaller / shorter term? Who is your target decision maker?
If you are targeting larger contracts, these are long-lead time sales channels that are heavily relationship based with senior decision makers - start with who you know, understanding their problems, and how you can help. Don’t sell, but help. Get one toe in the door.
If it is smaller scale / shorter term work, still need to have the contacts but they can be more mid-management decision makers. With that, need to get more volume as sales cycle can be shorter, but less certain.
Whomever is buying your service, needs it to fix a problem or exploit an opportunity - how can you help??
As for mass emails / LinkedIn messages - personally I feel this has become saturated. Give it a shot, but maybe use a service vs. hiring an employee so you can test it out.