5 Things to Look at when Your Lead Generation is Broken

I had the opportunity to join a discussion over on this blog where the writer states “Lead Generation Sucks! Now What?”

The writer, Justin Crotty, levied accusations that Lead Gen sucks because:
a) It’s expensive,
b) It’s time-consuming,
c) It “. . . only produces a few convertible prospects.”

Justin really knows how to start a conversation, doesn’t he? And he’s not afraid to verbalize what a lot of business people are thinking.

He’s wrong, of course, and I said so. Which brings me to . . .

Lead Generation Broken?? 5 Things to Look At:

1) Your Lead Generation Communications. Which includes everything about your message: your offer, your promise, your calls-to-action, your instructions, your word choice, your tone, your message length, the images you use, and most importantly the feelings and motivations that all of this creates in your prospective-clients.

2) Your Process. A lead comes in . . . then what? What’s your next step, when is it taken, by who, where, how? Is it verified? Is it scored? Is it tossed into a drawer? Oftentimes a lead is captured by Marketing and then put into a lead nurturing campaign. But what if that lead is already sales-ready? And does Marketing and Sales even agree on the definition of sales-ready?

3) Your Lead Generation Plan. Let’s assume you have one. Now ask yourself, “Is it a good one?” Are you communicating to the right audience, at the right time, in the right place(s) and with the right platform (whitepaper, tradeshow, direct-mail, webinar, outbound calls, advertising, social media, promotions, speaking engagements)? And do you have, and commit, all the resources you need to succeed?

4) Your Product or Service. Does it suck? Or is it perceived to suck? You need to have steel-reinforced gonads to admit it, and so most won’t, but the reality is a lot of products and services just aren’t all that special. Or worse, they suck. There’s an old? saying in Advertising: “Nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising.” So maybe, if your lead gen isn’t as you’d hoped, it’s just revealing a weakness in your operation.

5) Your Interpretation of the Results. You know, sometimes lead gen results are actually outstanding but the person analyzing and reporting the results is broken. Now there’s a scary thought.

Proper lead generation is neither:? ?expensive,? overly “time-consuming,” nor proven to produce only a ?. . . few convertible prospects.?

What it is, is: Profitable. Predictable. Scalable. Even fun. Prove it to yourself. Let’s fix your broken lead gen today.