When business people start a new business they do so called long-term thinking literally focusing on the kind of trends research consisted of a collection of reports and research on the sources and impacts of social and business change. The research can help to generate new business ideas. But I personally didn’t know that the research itself is a nice business. Here is my story of how I found a researching to be a great business nowadays.

Generally, business people need basic information to start and operate a business. Who are the decision-makers? What are their titles, back-grounds and responsibilities? What is an organization chart of the key people in the portion of the company their client is working with or targeting? So, the choice is to start digging up the information usually without any knowledge and skills and consequently spending a lot of time. Or, another option, a professional staff of researchers can do that quickly, precisely and without cutting off the budget.

According a Strategic Research Network, national strategic research company, researches provide Internet research services to their clients in exchange to a fee which depends on the project complexity. Researchers do something that their clients would rather not spend time doing at all. They dig up the current and accurate information that their clients absolutely must have to conduct their business. It could be the names, numbers and addresses of their potential clients. It might involve the pre-qualification of job candidates or preparation and management of e-mail tracking campaigns for employers.

Who can be a researcher and what they do? Marketing and management oriented people because they can appreciate how valuable sales and business research can be. People who enjoy being a “detective” and engaging in problem solving activities, those who are analytical and have project management skills.

Researchers use advanced Internet research services to generate custom leads that are unavailable anywhere else. They gather competitive business intelligence. They know everything about their clients or competitors so the clients can sell more products. The same approach is to the new business: there is a need of contact information for decision-makers that new companies can’t find anywhere else.

They also collect relevant industry content for marketing. It is not effective to just e-mail obvious promotional materials to the clients and prospects every time company communicates with them. Business purchasing decision-makers are too sophisticated. The researchers gather articles that are relevant to the target’s industry, sector and situation. They prioritize sales contact with e-mail tracking. What if your sales person could send an e-mail to 200 purchasing decision-makers and see in real time which ones were opening e-mails and which ones were clicking on links? What if you have their name and phone number right there too? Instead of calling 200 people who even didn’t read the message yet they can call 15 potential customers that are in their office and just have read the e-mail.

Researchers operate their own businesses, usually as home-office full or part-time, being perfect inexpensive outsource for their clients. While researchers are focusing on various types of lead generation projects their clients are concentrating on sales and recruiting activity.

According to SRN the future looks good. Demand for researchers among B2B Sales, Human Resources, Recruiters and Job Seekers remains high. That’s mostly because of the gap between what the average person can do and what trained researcher using excellent software and systems can accomplish. Whatever project company is planning this is a bad idea to let salespeople to do research themselves. Sales divisions of companies will continue to be expected to do more with less and will be looking for new ways to stimulate sales. Human Resources departments will be pressured to fill positions while reducing their recruiting costs. Job seekers- no matter how experienced they are- will always need the expertise of professionals who can put them in a position to speak with actual hiring authorities. So, isn’t it a nice business concept?