Lead Gen has a bad reputation!

There. I’ve said it. I’ve addressed the elephant in the room.

And there’s really no way of getting away with this because pretty much every single new client we speak to says the same thing – they’ve been down the lead generation road before – and the results were an expensive disappointment.

Or more bluntly – they’ve been burned!

The source of disappointments for clients is this: what a lead gen company calls a ‘lead’ is not what the client would class as a ‘lead’.

For example, merely producing a list of phone numbers of email addresses is not ‘lead generation’ if they’ve not even been spoken to or been identified as having a need.

Nor is speaking to someone, identifying that they might be interested and then handing it over to a client so that THEY can follow-up and book in an appointment.

What about those lead gen companies who do put an appointment in the diary? Too many times we hear that the appointment was only agreed as a way to get a pushy salesperson off the line or that that all they really wanted was a brochure and not an appointment. It’s the kind of appointment that cancels just before it’s due to start, or worse, goes ahead and wastes two people’s time.

And what about unscrupulous lead gen companies that book in one appointment and then sell it to up to six companies, leaving them to fight it out.

It sounds like a simple enough thing to put right, but time and again we hear the same thing about our competitors in the market.

The fundamental issue comes down to this: it’s an easy job to do; it’s a hard job to do properly.

Where does this leave us, Exceptional Thinking, as a lead gen business?

First, we have to acknowledge that if lead gen were easy, all of our clients would do it in-house. The reason why they outsource is because it is more work than they are prepared to put in themselves. Lead gen companies that aren’t prepared to do more than the client would do for themselves are wasting their clients’ money, and there are plenty of them in the market.

This takes us to the second issue: quality. We have a proven five-step process, which includes finding the right contacts on LinkedIn, messaging them to build a relationship and then calling them to find out their issues and ONLY booking them into an appointment if they have a genuine need means we can consistently book three to six qualified appointments per month for our clients.

Trust is the final part of the picture, and it is what happens only when you have accountability. We’ve instituted weekly calls with our clients to keep them updated on progress. We have incentivised ourselves to hold up the quality side of the transaction. If an approach isn’t working, we change it. If a client isn’t happy, they tell us and we act.

And here are the results: quality does prove itself in the end. The client above who felt ‘burned’ took a risk and engaged us to generate leads for them. Their feedback told us all we needed to hear:

‘The process is great. You guys mould and shape each enquiry and get it to a point where you know there is a serious conversation to be had. That not only saves my time which is massively valuable, but also means that when I go to a meeting, I know I will be having a conversation with an engaged person who presents a real opportunity.’

That’s quite a turnaround. It’s a result we’re proud of. But it’s not a result we would have achieved if Exceptional Thinking didn’t care about getting the results that the client needed first.

One final question: why shouldn’t we cut the quality, charge clients for useless leads and be like the rest of the industry? Because, frankly, new business is hard to find and we would rather generate leads for our clients than for ourselves. We become more profitable when we have repeat custom, positive word-of-mouth and recommendations.

When lead gen doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter how cheap it is: it’s still expensive. When it does work, it’s a very smart investment.

If you’d like to speak to us about how we can get between three and six qualified appointments each and every month, why not call us on 01386 298 042, reply to this email or click here to book a call with our team: