Understand that start-ups, scale-ups and more mature companies are completely different animals, regardless of whether you maintain a "start-up culture" as you grow or not. This means that as your company grows, you need different kinds of leaderships and skillsets. The person who successfully leads a company in the first years may not be the leader the company needs as it grows. It requires a complete different skillset to lead an organisation with 50 employees than one with 10. Of course, your leadership & management skills may grow as your company grows, but be honest to yourself and invest in a great leadership team that can help you lead the company. For many entrepreneurs this is a tough decision, but in the end a necessary one. Too many start-ups and scale-ups have failed due to bad/inadequate leadership.

I have been involved in several multimillion B2B businesses that relied on leads to make sales. The solution is simple, but hard at the same time: you should do this inhouse. Nobody knows your business better than you do. You understand your USPs and the added value that your services can bring to your customers. You basically need to cold-call potential customers but rather than selling your services, ask them what challenges they face in regards to the services you offer. That way, you don't get a "sales call", but have a conversation that the potential customer actually finds interesting. During the conversation you might mention that you can help them address several of the issues they are facing, and can convince them of the added value that you have for them. Selling is easy if you understand that you have to offer a solution to your customers problems rather than just trying to push your product. In order to find contacts you can use the company's website, LinkedIn or Google to find the names of the persons that you could contact. Cold-calling is still the most effective method in getting sales, especially since you only need a couple of new sales a month, so you should really focus on that! If you want to talk in more detail about how to best approach your prospects, conversation tactics etc., don't hesitate to give me a call.

If you know the journalist's name, your should reach out to him/her directly. If you don't yet have a name, then read the publications your interested in and check out the authors of the pieces that you find applicable/interesting for your business. While you can try email/twitter/LinkedIn, I have found that the best way is still to just call the person in question and have a short conversation with them. It's the most personal way and you can immediately answer any questions that the person might have. It might also be that the person refers you to another colleague more suitable for your request or that they give you advice on what the best approach would be for your kind of request. Trust me, nothing beats personal contact!