From the vague to the specific
Ah, the vague request. Ever feel like the girl in the fairy tale, who was asked to spin gold from straw? In the case of prospect researchers, sometimes we’re expected to spin a golden pile of prospect information from the straw of a note scribbled on a cocktail napkin. “I met a guy at the airport….” Sigh.
One form the vague request can take is “find the company.” Mabye it’s a specific firm you’re looking for, but you don’t have the company name, or maybe the name that was supplied is wrong and you’re coming up blank. Maybe you’ve just got a line of business and a not-very-specific location. “His family owns a company that makes equipment for breweries; they’re either in New York or New Jersey.” Alternatively, you may be asked to generate a list of companies in a specific line of business. “Find me all the companies in Idaho that make roofing supplies; we’re going to try and get an in-kind donation for the repairs on the dormitory roof.”
A great place to try this kind of search is Thomasnet. Brought to you by Thomas Register® and Thomas Regional®, it’s an industrial search engine designed to bring together suppliers and customers. The simple interface allows a search by product/service or by company name, and can search across the U.S. and Canada, or limit it to a single state or province. You can also search for companies by name or product within a set number of miles of a specified zip code, which is good for narrowing a search by location. If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, you can browse the product categories, and each search result also includes a list of related categories to try. At minimum, it provides names, addresses and phone numbers for the resulting companies
Thomasnet has its limitations: it’s heavily weighted toward industrial and manufacturing firms, certainly not comprehensive (but what source is?), and some of the indexing seems whimsical at times, with a few companies in every batch of results seemingly tossed in at random. But it can narrow the field when you’re facing a vague request.
One form the vague request can take is “find the company.” Mabye it’s a specific firm you’re looking for, but you don’t have the company name, or maybe the name that was supplied is wrong and you’re coming up blank. Maybe you’ve just got a line of business and a not-very-specific location. “His family owns a company that makes equipment for breweries; they’re either in New York or New Jersey.” Alternatively, you may be asked to generate a list of companies in a specific line of business. “Find me all the companies in Idaho that make roofing supplies; we’re going to try and get an in-kind donation for the repairs on the dormitory roof.”
A great place to try this kind of search is Thomasnet. Brought to you by Thomas Register® and Thomas Regional®, it’s an industrial search engine designed to bring together suppliers and customers. The simple interface allows a search by product/service or by company name, and can search across the U.S. and Canada, or limit it to a single state or province. You can also search for companies by name or product within a set number of miles of a specified zip code, which is good for narrowing a search by location. If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, you can browse the product categories, and each search result also includes a list of related categories to try. At minimum, it provides names, addresses and phone numbers for the resulting companies
Thomasnet has its limitations: it’s heavily weighted toward industrial and manufacturing firms, certainly not comprehensive (but what source is?), and some of the indexing seems whimsical at times, with a few companies in every batch of results seemingly tossed in at random. But it can narrow the field when you’re facing a vague request.
posted by Sandra Larkin @ 2:38 PM
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