It’s the stuff that sales nightmares are made of: You’re sitting in your office, waiting for the phone to ring, or worse, your team has exhausted their leads, and they have started cold calling and sending out cold emails.
You’ve been working hard, going to all the networking events you know, but your leads have dried up. Without new leads, you can’t make sales.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because lead generation is one of the most important – and most difficult – parts of the sales process. Without leads, you can’t make sales. But generating leads is notoriously difficult, especially for small businesses in a highly competitive digital world.
The good news is, there is a way to make lead generation more predictable – and more successful.
Outbound marketing is a traditional marketing strategy that involves activities such as trade shows, seminar series, and cold calling in order to reach potential customers. Although it can be costly, the ROI for outbound marketing is typically lower than for inbound marketing.
In the book From Impossible to Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue, authors Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin argue that predictable lead generation is the key to creating hyper-growth.
The book outlines seven ingredients of hyper-growth, including nailing a niche, creating a predictable pipeline, and doubling your deal size. Of these, creating a predictable pipeline is the most important.
So how can you create a predictable lead generation machine? The authors suggest a balanced lead-generation diet of seeds, nets, and spears.
Seeds are the foundation of your lead-generation diet. They are the low-hanging fruit, the easy wins that you can get with minimal effort. They might include subscribing to a trade publication or attending a networking event.
Nets are the second tier of your lead generation diet. They are a bit more challenging than seeds, but they can still be relatively easy to implement. Nets include things like conducting webinars or writing blog posts.
Spears are the third and final tier of your lead generation diet. They are the most challenging but also the most effective. Spears include things like cold-calling or direct mail.
The key to a successful lead generation diet is to have a healthy mix of all three – seeds, nets, and spears. Remember, you create a more predictable and successful sales pipeline by diversifying your marketing efforts!
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