I did something that I have been wanting to do for awhile… I removed the “Contact” link from my company website. But right there, in the top right of my site, I have a “Connect with me” section. Here you can find me through LinkedIn, Flickr, Facebook, Digg and Twitter.

I get a lot of leads for new work. But I feel bad, I don’t push forward on a lot of the work they want and I dont want to lead them on. Not because of the money or I don’t like the potential clients. It just that I am being picky. Majority of my favorite projects come from referral anyway. So really I am just lowering the throttle on my incoming email. I partnered with a few companies to refer out the leads, but it never really worked. Plus, I don’t want to be a salesman.
New contacts are now coming to me through different social networking sites. When I talk to new leads it is through a less formal medium and I don’t feel obligated to get back to all of them. I also learn about their companies and determine if their brand inspires me? I already get leads through Facebook then recruiters/employers contact me via LinkedIn and new tech friends follow me on Twitter.
Hopefully forever, if needed I can always put it back. I guess I have been lucky so far to network with the right people to get the steady work. I have never advertised as the project I get are mostly word of mouth. This allows me to find the right clients that I enjoy working with. Plus provide better quality (long term) work. Instead of the small, tedious projects that really aren’t that satisfying.
In the long term, I think this will bring me better quality business relationships and increase my network. Also allowing my company to operate smarter and not harder.