So as I wrote earlier, I will concentrate on the Security Installation market (Dutch: beveiligingstechniek) until I either invalidate it or would be able to learn faster in another market.

Looking for an industry organisation

Using Google within half an hour I found the trade organisation in The Netherlands: VEB (Vereniging Europese Beveiligingsbedrijven). They actually call themselves a European organisation but it looks like they operate in Dutch only.  On their website I found their memberlist of over 400 companies. Nicely cut-and-pastable into my Numbers spreadsheet to add extra details later.

Close-by or far away?

Later on it might be helpful to go for some face-to-face meetings. Because I was quite certain I would screw-up the first few calls, I did not want to burn through the companies closest to Amsterdam. I also thought further from Amsterdam people become more open.

So far it all went nice and smooth, so I was up for the first call!

Setting up for the calls

I am using Skype for Mac with headphones for my calls. Audio Hijack Pro to record the Skype audio and Pen and A4 paper for notes. I prepared by creating a high level call script on paper, which I continuously updated in between calls.