Systematic lead generation is the key to predictable revenue. When you have a reliable supply of leads, you can choose the right prospects. This makes sales more efficient, delivering value easier, and ultimately more margin. Rinse, wash, repeat and you have a turbocharged company.
The reverse is also true. Too few leads means Sales bandwidth is spent on bad deals and those that are won are often difficult to deliver with margin or even at all.
Relationship Selling Does Not Scale
If your offering is a “solution”, a service, or reliant on word-of-mouth and/or local references, it is likely that most of your leads are referrals, networking, relationships and organic inbounds. All of these lead generation techniques are generally highly efficient in terms of cost but usually non-scalable — most companies can’t add more relationship introductions by adding money and thus you can’t ensure a steady stream of new leads normally with that lead source.
Mass Outbound Email And Paid Advertising Almost Never Work
All those great, scalable lead generation techniques such as outbound email and paid advertising almost never work for these types of businesses as-is — especially if your goal is to sell non-local. “Spray and Pray” will only damage your email domain and your social media reputation.
The Key Is To Become More Transactional
The key to using these systematic lead generation techniques is changing how your product is perceived and what part of your offering is being presented. It must become more distinct, appear more transactional, and solve an immediate problem that other local providers could not solve in the same way. If you have been selling via referrals and/or locally, your product’s success is usually by doing the opposite– large scope, a complex integrated solution, trusted partner, etc…. This offering (without modification) will fail with almost all forms of systematic lead generation abroad.
VALUE PROPOSITION TOOLBOX
Use the same tools we use to boost your value proposition for non-organic outbound lead generation.
Tips For Your Next Outbound Campaign
- Re-factor your offering/message to get it as transactional, unique and relevant as possible.
- Target your audience so it is highly homogeneous– same roles, company types, geographies….
- Reach out to no more than 100 new names / week. Don’t burn too hot.
- This is a learning exercise first– systematically generating 1 quality lead/month is a reliable way is the hardest part of the journey. You likely will need several cycles to discover and perfect. If you have a 3 week cadence, that means 600 names / learning cycle at 100/week.
- Stay below spam and newsletter volumes. (you still need good precautions none the less)
- Get help from others already doing B2B outreach. Audience * Offering * Technique * Channel = Results. One weak link means no learning and no results.
