marketing for contractors

["Bonni J. Graham" <bgraham -at- ELECTRICITI -dot- COM>]

Betsy Perry notes:

"This isn't going to work for full-time employees, but it may help some
of the contractors out there.

I was whining to a friend about just this problem, and she said "Offer
them the first day free; that's about how long it takes me to get up
to speed on a new WP."  She's right."

I like this.  Partly because I think it's a neat idea (although you want to
be careful that they don't just toss you after your "free day"), and partly
because it allows me to segue on to a question I asked before, but at the
end of a different post.  I only received one response, which suggested
that I join STC and be active.  That's a very good suggestion, and I have
received work that way, but I'm not sure how I can be any more active than
being immediate past president, being on the programs committee, and
managing the regional conference and still have time to actually fulfill my
contracts.

What I'm looking for is ways other people have used to drum up business.
For example, a moderately successful tactic of mine is to look in the paper
to see who's hiring developers and QA techs and send them a direct mail
piece suggesting that these activities imply stepped up development, which
often has a short-term affect on the TW staff -- I'd be happy to step in
and help out.

Does anyone have any other tactics like this that they'd like to share?

Bonni Graham
Manual Labour
Director, Region 8 Conference
bgraham -at- electriciti -dot- com