Find new clients in the Belgian company register with Truva

In short

• Newly registered companies are potential clients nobody has approached yet.
• Truva turns one sentence about your trade into an automatic search of the BCE register.
• Each week, a mail lists the new companies that match, with the reason each one was picked.
• A three-column task board (to contact, waiting, done) keeps track of your follow-up.
• Truva is free, or €60 a year; the free plan shows contact details for 5 companies a week.

The real problem: good at the job, no time to look for work

Many freelancers and small trades live on word of mouth. As long as the phone rings, all is well. Then a quiet patch comes, and you have to look for work on top of doing it.

That is where it gets stuck. In the evening, after a day on site, you have neither the energy nor a method for finding clients. You type "new shops Namur" into a search engine, land on news articles and incomplete directories, and the evening is gone without a usable list. The next week you start over, or give up.

What is missing is not motivation but a reliable source and a rhythm: knowing where to look, getting new names without hunting for them, and keeping track of who you have already called.

Why look at companies that have just registered

An official source

In Belgium, the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (BCE in French, KBO in Dutch) is a database of the FPS Economy holding the basic data of companies and their business units. Each company gets a unique number there. A business that starts up appears in it, which makes it the most direct place to see who has just set up shop.

The right moment to introduce yourself

A business that opens has concrete needs: premises to fit out, an installation to put in order, a website, bookkeeping, supplies. It has no regular suppliers yet. Introducing yourself at that moment, politely and with a clear offer, often works better than approaching a company that has been running for ten years and has its habits.

The best time to offer your services to a business is when it has just opened and has nobody yet.

How Truva works, in three steps

Take an independent electrician in Namur: good at the job, but with no time to look for work.

1. Say it in a sentence

He writes down what he is looking for, the way he would explain it to a colleague: "Shops that opened in the last six months, within 15 km of Namur." Truva turns that into a standing search of the official register.

2. Read the weekly mail

Each week he gets a mail listing the newly registered companies that match, with the reason each one was picked. He sees at once why a company is on the list and can judge in seconds whether it is worth a call.

3. Decide and follow up

For each company he chooses: interested, later, or not for me. For the good ones he asks to see the contact details, which are shown on demand. He then follows up on a task board with three columns: to contact, waiting, done. He always knows who he has called and who still needs a follow-up.

The result: a short list of businesses that have just opened, in his area, every week, instead of an evening of searching.

What Truva costs

Truva works in English, French and Dutch. The price: free, or €60 a year. On the free plan, contact details are shown on demand for 5 companies a week. The details of each plan are on the product page.

For many small trades, five well-chosen contacts a week is already more than they can properly call. Starting on the free plan lets you see whether the list brings you anything before you pay for something.

What Truva does not do

Worth knowing before you start:

• It does not prospect for you. Truva tells you who has just registered and why the company matches. The call, message or visit is still yours to make.
• It only looks at new registrations. That is the whole idea: you get newly registered companies, not every business already established in your area.
• It works on a weekly rhythm. The list arrives by mail each week; it is not a real-time alert.
• It does not show every contact detail up front. They are shown on demand, for the companies you pick.

Turning the list into clients

A list is only worth what you do with it. A few simple habits help:

• Get your sentence right. The more precisely it describes the client you want (type of business, distance, how long it has been open), the more useful the list. If the results do not speak to you, rephrase.
• Set a fixed slot. Half an hour on the same day each week to read the mail, sort and call beats irregular marathon prospecting sessions.
• Be short and concrete. Introduce yourself, say in one sentence what you can do for a business that is starting out, and offer a visit or a quote.
• Sort honestly. "Not for me" is a good answer: it keeps the board light and leaves you time for the companies that matter.
• Follow up once. A new business is swamped. A second call or message a few days later is often the one that lands. The "waiting" column is there so you do not forget it.

Where to start

Write the sentence that describes your ideal client, the way you would explain it to someone in your trade: what kind of business, how recent, how far from you. Then open Truva and let it search the BCE register for you. The first list comes with the week's mail; who you call is up to you.

If finding clients is not your only admin headache, the article on why a good IT system matters for running a business helps you choose which task to tackle first.