A Better Way to Generate Leads
July 14, 2008
Take an honest look at your resources, then maximize them
By Mark Sneider
Whether it be an insurance agency, financial institution, advertising agency, manufacturing firm, law firm or other business, your organization may not be as well-equipped to generate lifeblood leads as you think.
Simply having your sales team drum up leads while they're busy trying to manage existing clients or in the throes of presenting to new ones—or relying on you, the president or principal, to do it when you have to focus on managing the business—isn't going to be the most effective or efficient way to manage the lead generation process.
That said, if you do opt for an internal lead generation program, there are five best practices that can give yours a substantial boost. Each is a critical step toward building solid pipelines of new business opportunities for your organization.
1. Be marketing-centric. Before you hand over the reigns to just anybody, establish a clear, concise and well-differentiated message for your brand. Without it, what will you say when the prospect asks, "Why should I consider you?"
Most heads of organizations don't know how to look at their businesses objectively when it comes to marketing and positioning. Consider this: Advertising agency principals (folks you think would "get it") will more often than not say the same things when asked what makes them different.
Before any prospecting is done, it's necessary to develop a brand story—a communications strategy that highlights your organization's "reasons to believe." These define what really makes a firm different. That differentiation could be expertise, process, insights or some other dimension, or a combination of these. The key is being objective, or bringing in a group that can take an objective look at your world.
Once you create this communications strategy, carry it throughout every touch point: letter copy, advertising, public relations, key talking points for your new business manager and (crucially) Web copy. One must be able to see the big picture and navigate through the changes needed to ensure consistency in marketing communications.
2. Be consistent. Returning to an earlier point, asking salespeople to sell and manage accounts while trying to generate leads will not prove successful to the organization. Having the principal or the president act as part-time lead generator will only lead to less-than-part-time success.
If you put a program together to generate leads, you need to make certain there are no breaks in the action, because the lead generation "game" is just as much of an aperture marketing game as it is a positioning, process and skill-set game. Maintaining consistency of reach-out is critical.
Today, your prospects might be satisfied with their existing service. But tomorrow, they may have an issue that their current partner or law firm or accountant isn't doing such a good job of fixing. That's when you need to be there the most.
3. Be relevant. The last thing you want to do is simply pound on doors in the hopes of one opening up; doing so makes you look less than strategic. You don't come off like a good potential partner, and you don't look like you understand your prospect's business. Being relevant takes time and focus—the kind of focus a well-organized, strategic group can bring to the effort.
Before any call is made into any prospect, the new business manager should be conducting news searches on the prospect, checking the Web site for press releases and scouring the category's e-publications for a nugget of an insight they can bring to the table. This way, you exhibit empathy and understanding when you do connect. Better still, you'll be better able to "bridge" the prospect's situation back to challenges you yourself have solved for your own clients. Prospects appreciate this; they like to be heard, not to be told.
4. Be particular. The problem with many prospecting efforts is they are more about numbers than the quality of the engagement. As the manager of a lead generator, you need to establish clear and measurable qualifying criteria upfront.
There are different points at which qualification can occur: when the list is built, when the list is cleaned and when the prospecting begins. The key is making sure your person or your firm has a clear handle on what the qualifiers are, and stands up to deliver them.
You can screen for prospect size (e.g., revenue, number of employees and so forth), type or location. When the list is cleaned before it's used, you can qualify for things like decision-maker status, or insights relative to the nature of the business. And when the work really begins and you start prospecting, you can dial it down to a more granular level and glean information on virtually any dimension—as long as the prospect is willing to share it, of course.
One step any organization should take is to conduct an open assessment after the first meetings, with the purpose of ensuring what's being delivered is on par with expectations. If it isn't, clearly define the deficiencies and put the plan in place to correct it so you maximize the productivity of the program.
5. Be a value-added partner. The best long-term partner is one who goes beyond the task at hand, bringing new thinking, new processes and new ways of doing things to the table for the client. While hackneyed and overused, it rings true when done properly. In the end, if you can be a real value-added partner, your clients will be more forgiving when things aren't going just right. More importantly, they'll be more likely to keep you on board longer.
The same holds true when you reach out to your prospects. Not only is it important to reach out with relevancy, it is critical to show that you understand your prospect's situation. Show that you want to help the prospect by sharing news, ideas and suggestions to help their business.
As you can infer from the above points, there's a lot that needs to be considered if you're going to build an effective lead generation program internally. It's not as simple as picking up the phone and dialing for dollars! But rest assured: Once properly implemented, it will yield significant results.
Mark Sneider is the president of LeadArchitects, an outsourced lead generation and sales firm. He can be reached via e-mail at msneider@leadarchitects.com.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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