Effective Techniques Used To Generate New Leads For Your Business

By Author: Sam Magdalein
Total Articles: 4762
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"There is nothing new under the sun," goes the old (Biblical) saying. And it's true enough as far as it goes. There are very few completely original ideas, but there are an infinite number of ways that ideas, concepts and even business techniques can be customized in one's own, unique way. If you are a business owner looking for effective techniques to generate new leads, common sense and just a bit of creativity can help you transform a "generic" method into your own personalized approach.

During the "crazy fast" period of Internet growth, some overexcited pundits and business analysts began touting "virtual relationships" as the way of the future. Such sites as LinkedIn, Doostang, Facebook, Wink, Visible Path, ZoomInfo, Plaxo, Bebo and Brand-Yourself proliferated, offering business owners and others the opportunity to create and "mine" a number of different virtual communities. This was supposed to make "real world" (meaning flesh and blood) relationships obsolete.

Everything old is new again

Of course, that never happened. In fact, a Harvard study commissioned by the founder of a newfangled lead generation ...
... company in 2007 confirmed the business truism that many of the older generation grew up with - "People don't do business with businesses, they do business with other people." All this old saying means is that there has to be a personal relationship, one with a certain level of trust, for deals to be struck and commerce to stay healthy.

The best approach is to take the best of both worlds, virtual and real. The reason that old sayings become old sayings - and don't just die out like archaic ad slogans - is that they contain at least a grain of truth. Many contain much more than that, of course. The following tips and techniques are in no particular order, and should be custom-tailored to your particular style, structure and staff.

Cyberspace techniques

That Harvard study showed that even people with 300 contacts on a large business or social networking sites do not consider those contacts a good source of moneymaking referrals. The missing ingredient is trust. People need to develop trust in their relationships, both personal and professional, and that is not easy to do when you are seeing and hearing only what another wants you to see and hear. Also, nonverbal cues are an essential ingredient in face-to-face communication, meaning that e-mails and phone calls cannot help people build trust even over time.

Therefore, to the extent you use e-mail, websites, phone calls and other "impersonal" communication channels, you should do so as an adjunct to more personalized efforts. Even video chats add more unarticulated information to a conversation, so that is one cyberspace technique that may help bridge the "communications gap."

Use e-mail lists of your own creation, mine addresses from the Internet, use business directories and online listings, and continue the "cyber-schmoozing" with your networking site contacts. Just remember that it will take additional steps to turn a possible lead into an actual one, and that there will be an additional time investment to do so.

Get out and about

One result of the Internet's rapid growth and growing reach is that many people stay in the office most of the time. Recreation has come to mean "playing computer games" and going to the movies can simply mean connecting to Netflix. For the business owner, lead generation should never be redefined as "logging in" to a few networking sites. This is a part (and not a huge one) of the process, of course, but there is no substitute for meeting people face to face.

Getting out and about keeps you involved in your industry and connected to your customers, if that makes sense in your line of work (and it does in most). Go to the trade shows and conferences, hit a few of the early-morning, in-person, back-of-the-diner networking meetings and look for other opportunities to be around the kind of people who would be potential customers. Sign up for a low- or no-cost business seminar, or night-time marketing class at a local junior college.

Do you design and/or print flyers for a business? Go to all the flea markets in your area. Do you repair computers? Ask the manager of the local office supply store if you can leave a stack of business cards on the counter or put a poster in a window. This technique can give you an "implied endorsement," even, which is another important trust-builder, and we've already seen how important trust is for doing business.

The hybrid approach

This is not to say that all the standard suggestions - e-mails, networking sites, writing articles for the local paper or a website, cold calling (everyone's favorite) - are not still applicable. You simply need to remember that there is one additional step, or a series of steps, to take after coming up with a list of prospects. You need to discover ways to introduce yourself and your product or service in a personal manner, and understand that there will be an investment of time and energy to do so.

Keep up with your "virtual" activities, return to (or keep doing) the real-world actions that place you in the midst of potential customers or clients, track everything you do and continue adapting and adjusting your approach as you learn. Of course it's difficult, and of course it is going to require an investment of time (and that means money, naturally). You will need some sort of way to calculate your ROI (Return On Investment), too, so that you can determine what is working for you and what isn't.

Continue to read, discuss ideas with friends and colleagues, and try different approaches with people you meet along the way who may become friends, colleagues, customers or all three. Very few businesses succeed by accident, and the number of variables involved in building a business is quite high, indeed. Do the best you can with what you've got, stay positive, think things through, get good advice - and don't give up, no matter what. In fact, that's the bottom line advice in any success formula. The rest is just details. Okay, now - back to work!
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