Looking for lead generation techniques that actually increase sales? My thirteen top tips will help you to generate lots of qualified leads by avoiding the common mistakes that many salespeople make.

Creating a Lead Generation System That Works

If you’re a consultant, coach or the owner of a small business and you help your clients to:

1. Know precisely where they’re heading in life
2. Get motivated to achieve their goals
3. Get clear on why they want what they say they want
4. Understand the solutions to their problems
5. Maximise the opportunities that come their way

Then you’ll want to create a lead generation system that delivers a stream of qualified leads into the top of your marketing funnel. Nothing is worse, as a self-employed person than a lack of leads. To increase sales, we need to avoid having meaningless conversations with people who wouldn’t buy what we have to offer even if they did have the money. Providing our expertise for free (all of the time) is simply having a badly paid hobby.

Common Lead Generation Mistakes You Need to Avoid

Here are the mistakes most people make when trying to generate the “qualified” leads they need — and how you can generate many more leads for your business:

1. Leaving it too long to follow up on leads.

   Once you receive a lead from any source, follow up on the same day. It’s unusual that a person would even remember the web form they completed — especially if asked seven days later.

2. Not having a systemised referral process.

   One of the best sources of qualified leads is current, satisfied clients. Create a script to ask for referrals and practise it. Ask your clients every quarter for more referrals.

3. Failing to use a wide range of lead generation tools.

   Create a free report or guide or audio or video that you can offer to prospects to show you know what you’re talking about. Give them a fabulous sample of what you know and invite them to enjoy a short complimentary session with you. Read my blog post about how to write a book for your business to help you with this further.

4. Limiting your routes to market.

   Don’t limit yourself to a single lead generation technique. Use multiple methods to increase sales and take many routes to market. Google ads. Facebook ads and posts. LinkedIn ads and posts. There are so many different ways to contact potential customers and generate qualified leads in 2019. Test them to see which ones work best for you.

5. Investing in poorly performing marketing initiatives.

   People respond differently to different offers. Try offering a range of useful and unique lead generation tools, such as a free instructional CD or audio download, access to a streaming video or webinar. Let the market tell you what works. Perhaps offer the first three chapters of your latest book/booklet — free of charge.

1. Not having a sign-up box on your homepage.

   So many websites have their free marketing offers and lead generation tools hidden away in the copy or worse still — not even on the homepage. Have your potential client details capture box and offer clearly visible the moment visitors land on your website.

2. Failing to track click-throughs and conversions.

   Failing to track click-throughs and conversions leaves you in the dark about which lead generation activities are producing the best results. This can, therefore, lead to you spending money and time on poorly-performing sales and marketing techniques that you could otherwise have avoided.

3. Not undertaking lead generation activities consistently.

   As a small-business owner, it’s essential to undertake some lead generation and marketing activity almost every day. So many coaches and consultants suffer from feast and famine because when they’re providing their services, they’re not also marketing.

4. Wasting money on non-direct response marketing methods.

   Once your lead generation activities are generating a steady stream of qualified leads, it’s time (possibly) to start doing PR or investing in other non-direct response methods. Not before!

5. Failing to ask the same person twice.

   If you have an email list or have bought or rented an email list, it’s always a good idea to send the same marketing email to the list twice. Some marketers claim that you can achieve half as many responses again from sending the second campaign as a follow-up.

6. Not testing headlines.

   Successful businessmen such as Michael E Gerber (the author of The E-myth Revisited) and Ted Nicholas have stated that at least 75% of the buying decision is made at the headline. Whether that’s exactly accurate or not, it’s still evident that the first words seen by a prospect will be the headline or subject line. Therefore it makes total sense to test different headlines and see which ones produce higher click-through rates and conversions.

7. Failing to create timely and relevant content.

   Writing business blogs to boost website traffic? If you can link to what’s happening in the news — providing it’s not disasters — then this may well increase readership and subsequent click-throughs.

8. Ignoring the power of endorsements.

   When I interviewed the famous marketer, Jay Abraham, I asked him which of his many strategies he would keep above all others. His reply: Endorsed mailing! When the list owner endorses your offer to their list, it’s likely to have a higher click through and subsequent take-up rate.

When you have a systemised way of generating leads from a number of different sources and are successfully keeping track of all the tests you undertake — then you have given yourself the best possible chance to convert qualified leads into fee-paying clients or product-buying customers.

Wishing you every Success.

Peter Thomson

“The UK’s Most Prolific Information Product Creator”