Should You Build Relationships or Just Tell Them You’re Selling?

There are lead generation experts that will tell you that lead generation is all about building relationships with your clients and that it’s all about getting their trust. They will be the first to point out that lead generation should be viewed as a long term investment, and a businessman doing lead generation should consider himself a farmer, planting seeds that will eventually turn into prospects, which could later be harvested by being converted to sales.

But if you are a businessman that does not have the resources to hire a lead generation company for lead generation services and one that is working on limited time and budget, how much time should you spend tightening your belt while building relationships with your clients?

This is where the building relationships versus telling your website visitors that you are selling debate come in. When budget and time is limited, could you still wait for months until you tell your website visitor that you are selling something, or should you wait until they ask you?

Some take the middle ground by subtly putting buttons that lead to order forms, or adding a sentence or two about purchasing the products. Others simply add links that lead to a sales page. In the end, the decision is all yours. There are really no concrete rules about lead generation.

Your Lead Generation Will Fail If You Fail To Remember This

A lot of people that are doing lead generation on their own often fall into the trap of aiming to have a huge traffic in their website. Although this is a good goal to achieve, having millions of viewers visiting your website will amount to nothing if none of them will actually purchase your product. So unless you 
remember that you are doing lead generation in order to get sales, your lead generation program will just be another hobby, not a money making activity.

A lead generation company that offers extensive lead generation services will be the first to remind you that lead generation should be about converting prospects (website visitors) into clients. With this in mind, your lead generation efforts will definitely take a different shape. For example, you might be
able to attract hordes of visitors to your website by offering numerous freebies like e-books, programs, graphics and codes. But with the aim to increase sales in mind, you might modify the freebies scheme into getting more freebies if they enlist in your lead list, or offering more freebies once they purchase your product. Or you might also add more call to action buttons on your website that would lead the website visitor into purchasing your products or services.

So never forget that lead generation is not only about getting people to your website. It is about generating sales. Without converting prospects into leads and leads into clients, pretty soon you will not have the means to continue your lead generation.

Lead Generation: Think Short Term and Long Term

Lead generation should be viewed in two ways: short term and long term. Getting leads using short
term techniques is important because you will need to a supply of leads to generate sales. Without an
immediate supply of leads, your business may be doomed to an early death. If you are hiring a lead
generation company for lead generation services, be sure to include a healthy dose of strategies and
action plans in getting an immediate supply of leads.

While the short term lead generation techniques will put food on the table, the long term lead
generation techniques will enable you to make your business last for a longer time. Long term lead
generation is like canning fruits for winter. Everybody will salivate with the good smells coming from the
kitchen, and will be enticed to linger on for the long haul. You will also have something to dish out when
fresh fruits are no longer available.

So when you are making your lead generation program, be sure to have programs that will immediately
convert people into leads and programs that you will do today, in order for you to get leads later.

Lead Generation: Think Short Term and Long Term

Lead generation should be viewed in two ways: short term and long term. Getting leads using short term techniques is important because you will need to a supply of leads to generate sales. Without an immediate supply of leads, your business may be doomed to an early death. If you are hiring a lead generation company for lead generation services, be sure to include a healthy dose of strategies and action plans in getting an immediate supply of leads.

While the short term lead generation techniques will put food on the table, the long term lead generation techniques will enable you to make your business last for a longer time. Long term lead generation is like canning fruits for winter. Everybody will salivate with the good smells coming from the kitchen, and will be enticed to linger on for the long haul. You will also have something to dish out when fresh fruits are no longer available.

So when you are making your lead generation program, be sure to have programs that will immediately convert people into leads and programs that you will do today, in order for you to get leads later.

Selling is No Longer a Monologue

An American salesman is trying to sell ice to an Eskimo. He blabbers on and on and on about the need of the Eskimo for the ice, the superiority of his ice against the ice surrounding the Eskimo, etc. The Eskimo was listening to the man and would only be distracted every now and then by a discreet beep on his iPhone. After about 30 minutes, just as the salesman was winding down on his sales talk, A FedEx guy appeared and the Eskimo told the salesman, “I’m sorry I won’t be buying your product. You see, I posted on my Twitter and my Facebook that somebody is selling me ice and my followers advised that if I really need ice, I should get it from this company that they have tried. Plus they offer free delivery too. And I can purchase their ice online, with money back guarantee. ”

And the moral of the story, my friend, is this: Selling is no longer a monologue.

If you want to sell your product, get yourself and your product out there in the internet world. Talk to your clients and talk to their friends. Yes, it is a tall order. So you will need all the help you can get. Ask for it if you must. Search for an experienced lead generation company with lead generation services for your lead generation. There’s really no point in working on a prospect that will only be usurped by others because of your own bungled effort.

Before You Buy a Sales Lead List

Before you give in to the temptation of a quick solution to your lead generation problem and respond to that email that says they can provide you with millions of email addresses and contact numbers of companies, give yourself some time to consider these things:

1. Are you sure that the list is made of people who have willingly given their consent to be contacted by someone they do not know? Beware that some companies use email harvesting programs that scans sites and harvests email addresses, unbeknownst to the owner of the email address. If this is the case, your email may land in the spam or will be largely ignored by the recipient.

2. Can you narrow down the email addresses according to the demographics of your targeted niche? Buying a sales lead list might easily give you a million leads to work with. But qualifying those leads will require more time and effort.

3. Lead generation requires a lot of work. The tempting short cut of a sales lead list might prove to be futile when you begin to realize that most lead lists actually contain dead email addresses and contact numbers.

There might be valid providers of lead lists out there. But if you really want to make sure that your lead generation is going to work without the hassle, it is better to hire a lead generation company that offers excellent lead generation services. They will be able to generate leads for you that are qualified and would only cost you per lead.

Are you a B2B or a B2C company? Why This Should Matter

Your lead generation program should be suited to whether you are a B2B or a B2C company. If your company belongs to the B2B group, one of the most effective lead generation strategies is still telemarketing, especially if you are selling a highly technical product. Most key decision makers in B2B companies are either too busy to frequently check Twitter or Facebook updates or are not even technologically savvy enough to use the internet. This is why maintaining an excellent lead generation team in-house or through a lead generation company with extensive lead generation services that includes telemarketing is vital to your lead generation campaign. However, it must be noted that you must maintain a website with relevant and informative articles of your products and your product niche.

But if your company belongs to the B2C group, then building a solid presence in the social media platforms is a must. Online spending this year reached the 1 billion mark, a significant indication of the evolving buying habits of end consumers. What should be noted with the B2C group is that these are often people who are hesitant to give out personal information, especially their mobile numbers to companies so telemarketing might actually work against you. In contrast, the executives in the B2B companies maintain official phone numbers which they will not mind giving.

Why You Still Need to Make a Phone Call

A growing number of those in the lead generation business are saying that telemarketing is quickly becoming an obsolete thing. They believe that leads are best generated through high quality content in websites, excellent visibility in the social media platforms, regular and relevant email marketing newsletters. To them, telemarketing is rapidly becoming obsolete because more and more people are linked to the internet and prefer to communicate via email.


But should we look at telemarketing as a thing of the past? While it is indeed important that companies should give importance and budget to developing a website with relevant and well written content and ensure that it has presence in the different social media platforms, telemarketing should still rank as one of the main lead generation activities.

There is a basic reason for doing so: key decision makers are often too old to be technologically savvy and thus are not as into the internet as the rest of the middle aged executives or are too busy to always be giving time to their Twitter or Facebook accounts. The reality is this: while they may have their own email, Twitter or Facebook accounts, these are often managed by their trusted secretaries. So do not give up on  telemarketing just yet. Hold on to that lead generation company that gives excellent lead generation services who knows how to get the big boss on the phone or at least get past the secretary for an appointment.

Today’s Lead Generation

Lead generation should be a mix of different strategies if you want a constant supply of leads coming to your business. Gone are the days when all you have to do is put up an ad in the newspaper or make a press release. Today, in order to be able to effectively compete in the market, you must be able to master not only the more traditional lead generation strategies like making ads, but outbound lead generation, getting traffic to your website and managing all the popular social media platforms as well. And this is on top of managing and supervising your business!

At no other time has businesses been more complex. The buying habits of consumers have evolved such that most of them have turned into cerebral consumers, making informed purchasing decisions. This, the slow economy, and the global competition is rapidly evolving the playing field of businessmen. Cut throat competition is no longer sufficient to describe the scenario.

Thus, often, businessmen have to make an honest assessment in their ability and expertise to handle lead generation. Can’t get Facebook likes outside of your family members? You can sell ice to an Eskimo, but you spell Eskimo as Iskemo? Let an expert lead generation company tell you about their lead generation services. In today’s lead generation, it is often better to trust it to the experts who know that they are doing, rather than waste precious time bungling your way about.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 10.

Bear in mind that not all leads are sales-ready. Another important factor in a successful lead generation  campaign is knowing at what phase in the purchasing decision your lead is and the respective strategy to use. Not all leads are ready to buy, even if they decided to sign up for your newsletter. Some of them may even decide not to buy at all. And there are customers who are happy with your company that they could become your leads for your new products and services. There are wonderful newsletter applications that you can use and excellent customer relationship management (CRM) software will enable you to keep track of the purchasing behavior of your clients.

A great lead generation company with extensive lead generation services will assist you in coming up with what techniques to use for every phase of the purchasing decision. They will be able to come up with effective scripts for cold calling, with great content that will interest people in your product niche, with efficient methods to go past the secretaries who are considered the gatekeepers of the key decision makers of corporations and other such techniques, depending on which phase if the decision making your prospect is.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 9.

Are you making things easy and fast for your customers? In the recent past, one of the most important marketing tools was the catalogue. Companies would send attractively designed catalogues to its potential clients; the clients would order and patiently wait for the goods to be delivered. If there is a terrible storm, they would tell themselves that was probably why the goods were delayed. If there was something wrong with the goods when it reached them, they wouldn’t mind doing a bit of sewing or hammering to fix them.

Compare this with the clients of today. They want everything easy and fast. They do not want to be approached and asked if they want to subscribe to your newsletter, but they expect to find you when they want to. And if they want to, they will post a tweet or a status and ask their friends and not-so-friends about you. And if they do decide to allow you to contact them, they only want to answer a three question registration form, usually just a first name, an optional last name and an email. Anything more will be construed as an invasion to their privacy. And when they decide to buy your products, they want it now. And they will want a tracking number of the shipment so will know exactly where the product is of course a lifetime warranty or at least a return option. If you cannot deliver top notch product and lead generation service, word will leak out and you will lose potential leads.

So regardless of whether you are doing your lead generation or you are outsourcing a lead generation company for your lead generation services, you must also review your entire business operation and ask the most vital question, “Are we making things easy and fast for our customers?”

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 8.

Double check your website’s content. If there is one rule you should know about doing lead generation online it is this: There is no fixed rule. During the early days of the internet, the rule was to get a dot com and people would come flocking to you. A company with a dot com was seen as a modern company. And then when there were too many dot coms, the rule changed to having numerous backlinks. Backlinks signified that may people trust your website. The concept of PageRank was created. People began to trust companies with high PageRanks. And now the rules have changed again. This time, content is king. So what do you have to achieve now? You must have a website with good content. And not just good content, your content must be easy to share in social media as well. Does your website contain informative, current, relevant content? Are you following the Content is King rule?

Because of the ever changing landscape of online lead generation, most companies prefer to be guided through the process by an excellent lead generation company that offers extensive lead generation services. These lead generation companies stay updated on the current online lead generation strategies to ensure their clients’ success.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 7.

Do not give up on brand awareness. There is an ongoing debate amongst companies about which strategy should be used: lead generation or brand awareness. Each has its own merits and costs that should be considered. Some companies are choosing one over the other. But really, both should be engaged in if you really want to build a strong brand and company, and not just a temporary surge in sales.

Building strong brand awareness will make it easier for lead generation. This is because a strong brand will make you naturally attractive to consumers. This will give you additional leads. Another advantage of having a strong brand is that when your lead generation team had achieved the goal of generating leads, these will be easier to convert to sales if these leads check you out and they see you are as a trust worthy brand.

So it is not really brand awareness over lead generation. Rather, it should be synchronized movements between the two strategies that will make your business succeed. A failure in one might lead to the failure in the other strategy. So don’t give up on your programs on brand awareness.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 6.

Position yourself correctly. The basic rules for positioning yourself correctly in lead generation are the same as when you position your product in your market niche. The business landscape had changed so much over the last decade that businessmen nowadays have to bear in mind that they are not just selling their products, they are also marketing their company. Consumers have placed increasing importance on building relationship and trust with a company before buying a product. This is a result of the increased usage of the internet and social networks where consumers could easily get feedbacks about a company from their friends and other people they don’t even personally know.

This is significant in lead generation because leads come from 2 directions: those you are actively chasing and those that will come to you. So while you are actively seeking leads, make sure that you also make your company and your products attractive. Another important reason is that your leads will be checking you out in the internet. So be sure you are out there in the World Wide Web and you establish yourself as an authority in your market niche.

A lead generation company with extensive lead generation services will be able to offer you other services like content marketing that will be significant in establishing yourself correctly.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 5.

Targeting where to look for leads. One key success ingredient of a successful lead generation program is knowing where to look for leads. Successful sales people often have a knack of getting leads, which they could translate to sales. 

If you are in the process of generating leads for your lead generation program, it is vital that you build a good network. But, and this is significant, make sure that you build a good network in the right places. Recent statistics show that business to consumer companies has greatly profited from social networking, but the impact of social networking is not as significant for business to business companies. Some business to business companies are finding LinkedIn more effective in lead generation than Facebook. So make sure you are in the right place and with the right group when you build your network.

A lead generation company with extensive lead generation services often has a database of millions of leads that you could gain access to, in exchange for a fee. Having such a list will definitely reduce the hours you will spend searching for leads. However, you must also be cautious because there are unscrupulous companies that offer lead lists that are outdated or have dead end leads.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 4.

Establish road marks to success. Hiring a lead generation company that is the best in lead generation and one that offers excellent and extensive lead generation services will entail cost for you and your company. The compensation they usually expect are either hourly or hourly plus a bonus for goals that are achieved. Even if you choose to utilize your own personnel for lead generation, man-hours will also be spent on the program which will eventually show in your expenses. So it will be wise to make sure that you track the performance of your lead generation program.

You can do this by regularly assessing the progress of your lead generation team through pre-established milestones. Milestones are benchmarks; these are significant points that should be achieved in order to reach the main goal. For example, you are aiming to get one thousand new leads in one year. You can set milestones by telling your team to achieve eighty-five new leads every month.

Setting milestones will also enable you to modify your goals if they prove to be not achievable, or change the personnel involved in the program if any of them proves to be unproductive or significantly less productive than the rest of the team.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 3.

Establish the results that you want from your lead generation program. Having a clear cut idea of what you expect from your lead generation program will be beneficial both for you and your lead generation team or outsourced lead generation company. By having clear expectations from the start, the lead generation company will be able to assess if you have realistic expectations. A lead generation company that offers excellent lead generation services will be able to tell you industry standards and success rates of lead generation programs.

Basically, if you are to embark on a lead generation program, is best if you establish SMART goals. This means that you must aim to have Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bounded goals. An excellent lead generation company will be able to guide you on the formulation of such goals. It will also be significant to the program to make sure that you have the feedback of your sales and marketing teams regarding your goals. They will be able to give you an insight on the issues and concerns on lead generation that has an effect on your expectations and goals.

It is significant that you will be able to set what you want from your lead generation program so that you and the lead generation company will be able to agree on clear benchmarks during the program and will have a clear idea of the results to be gained from the program.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 2.

Gather what data you have. Before you think about the millions of possible clients that a lead generation company might offer, take time to sit down with your customer service representatives, sales and marketing people and gather the list of clients that you already have. For your lead generation, it is advised to look inside your own company first, before you go looking outside for prospective clients.

Your customer relationship management (CRM) software is a good place to start. While you are at it, you might also want to try to update the data it holds by double checking which names are active clients. If you have done a good job of tracking the purchases of your clients, you might even be able to gather data about which ones have tried any free trial products, those that made repeat purchases, and those that had good and bad comments about your products and services.

By taking a look at your own data, you will be able to make a note of which clients you can contact to make repeat purchases and perhaps even get referrals from those who are greatly satisfied with your products and purchases. Even if you outsource lead generation services, doing so will be a great head start for you and the lead generation company.

Key Steps to Successful Lead Generation. Step 1.

Start it Right. A lead generation company that offers excellent lead generation services will tell any client that it is better to get lead generation right at the onset, rather than revise the entire program in the middle of gathering leads.

So if you are planning on setting up a lead generation program or campaign, bear in mind to start it right. And this means having both your marketing and sales people in the meeting room and discussing their issues on lead generation. You will be surprised that although both departments will have the same issues, they look at the issues, think about them and resolve them differently. As most companies that completed lead generation programs already know, getting both departments to cooperate and settle on common goals and strategies will go a long way in making your lead generation a success.

It should be firmly pointed out that both departments will be accountable for the results of the lead generation program. Issues that they actually have or even perceive should be threshed out and resolved. And most importantly, ask both departments on their ideas on how the lead generation should be done to ensure its success.

Surprisingly, this very basic step is overlooked by business owners and even top management when a lead generation program is designed. Too often, a lead generation company will assure these top guns that they have industry knowledge and so will be able to design a lead generation program without consulting the frontline.