Build A Sustainable Lead Genertion Program

In the last article from the New Business Development series,  we introduced the Intellectual Sales Process™ for New Business Development .  At a recent iSales™ workshop, lead generation was one component of the training. A participant asked the question: “How do I fill my pipeline with the right types of leads?” Sales professionals usually spend between 20 to 45% of their time prospecting. Consider an average week. Twenty to forty percent of one’s time spent prospecting equates to approximately 12 hours per week seeking out new business.

In a study we conducted, we found that 31% of the leads in a professional’s pipeline did not fit their ideal customer profile; that means that almost four hours of every week is wasted on chasing leads that will never turn into viable business opportunities. Consider the impact on even a small organization with 10 sales professionals each wasting four hours per week on bad leads – that’s 40 hours per week and 2080 hours per year of wasted time. That equates to 260 days of lost productivity per year. This is staggering!

Positively Impact Your Sales Success

The challenge for many people and organizations is how to minimize bad leads. Here are three things you can begin doing today to positively impact your success in creating quality new business:

1. Establish an Ideal Customer Profile
2. Scrutinize new leads based on the Ideal Customer Profile

3. Test lead sources before purchasing

1. Establish an Ideal Customer Profile

In the iSales Process™ for New Business Development workshop we teach professionals how to build a unique Ideal Customer Profile. This article is not the proper forum to teach you everything about building your own Ideal Customer Profile, but you can certainly build a good working model. Here is what you need to do:

Put together a list of the top 20% of your customer base. To create Ideal Customer Profile, the first calculation you make is to take your total number of customers for this year and multiply this number by 20% to reach the total number of customers to place on your Ideal Customer Profile. So, if you have had 100 customers this year, your Ideal Customer Profile would total 20 customers.

The criterion for which top 20% customers get listed on your Ideal Customer Profile should be based solely on revenue and profitability. You will want to insure the customers in this list have a good track record when it comes to placing orders. Don’t confuse a customer that made a large, one-time purchase with a top 20% customer. Sustainable business growth is what you are seeking.

Now, open a word processing document and copy the bulleted list below into the document. This will be the foundation for your Ideal Customer Profile. You can choose to format and arrange it based on your own preferences. You may also choose to add additional profiling data to this list.

Foundation of Your Ideal Customer Profile

• Key Contact Information
  • Decision Maker’s Name
  • Job Title of Decision Makers
  • Number and job titles of other people influencing the decision
• Key Organization Information
  • Business Name
  • Years In Business
  • SIC Code(s)
  • Credit Rating
  • Annual Budget for your product/services
  • Size
• Geographical Information
  • Location
  • Proximity To You
  • State/Province
  • Postal Code
  • Country
• Challenges And Solutions
  • Common Challenges You Solve For Each Customer
  • Common Solutions Customers Use

The purpose of the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is to take a concrete look at what your best customers have in common. You can then use these similarities to seek out new business with potential prospects that match your current top 20% customer base. Most items in the list above are self explanatory; however, the two principles under “Challenges and Solutions” may not be so clear.

The goal of the Challenges and Solutions section is for you identify the exact reasons your customers buy based on the major challenges they face. You cannot skip this part of the practice. The success of your ICP hinges on how well you connect your solutions with the challenges of future customers. It will help you succeed in lead generation and prospecting.

As you add customers to your ICP, you will likely notice similarities; these similarities give you the formula for how to sort new leads. In this short exercise, you have successfully built an Ideal Customer Profile.

2. Scrutinize new leads based on the Ideal Customer Profile

The Ideal Customer Profile is not a document that you create for practice and then stick in the back of drawer somewhere. It should be a continuous work in progress. Revise and update the information as the profile of your best customers evolves.

The purpose for creating your Ideal Customer Profile is to spend more time on GOOD leads. Use your ICP as you seek to determine which new leads you work on. Leads can come from many directions such as marketing, purchasing lists, and tradeshows.

Purchase Leads

If you purchase a list of leads, buy only leads that match your Ideal Customer Profile. Especially pay attention to the Key Contact’s Title, Key Organization Information, and Geographical Information.

Tradeshow Leads

Before working a trade show, develop questions that will help you uncover how well the prospects fit your ICP. You will not only want to consider all the same points from the “Purchase Leads” section above, but also the “Challenges and Solutions” section from your profile.

The goal of scrutinizing leads is to ensure you reduce the amount of wasted time on leads that result in little or no business. You cannot guarantee that every lead will be successful, but you can improve your chances by using a solid profile to benchmark each lead.

3. Test Lead Sources before Purchasing

Although there are many different ways to generate leads, one common method is to purchase leads from list companies. Three things you need to consider when purchasing leads:

I. Reputation matters
II. Realistic expectations
III. Find a specialist

I. Reputation matters

The reputation of the lead company you choose is important. Do your homework and look on different message boards, perform an internet search on the company, ask questions to determine if the company’s reputation and leads are quality, and ask other people who also purchase leads for recommendations. We have experienced several clients who were frustrated with the leads they purchased only to find out the lead company’s reputation was questionable. Too often lead companies sell outdated information, yet tell customers it is current. Be an informed buyer.

If a list company believes in their list and is not hiding anything, they will let you test the leads. Ask them for a sample of 25 to 50 leads. Compare the leads to your profile, send out some lead letters or make prospecting calls to verify the quality of the leads. If a company is unwilling to let you test the leads, the leads probably are not worth purchasing.

II. Realistic Expectations

You need to keep your expectations realistic. If the quality of the leads a company is trying to sell you sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Our studies show that if you purchase a targeted list you will still only have about 84-86% of the leads be worthwhile. Therefore, do not buy a list of200 leads and expect to have 200 quality leads. If you get 160 good leads out of the list, you’re doing fine.

III. Find a Specialist

Don’t just settle on a list company that sells common leads. Do the extra research and use your creative mind to consider other sources for leads. For instance, in a campaign we conducted, a customer needed a list of leads from the manufacturing industry. Instead of just going to a D&B or InfoUSA (which, by the way, are both great companies), we investigated purchasing the subscriber list from an industry specific magazine. The leads we generated were specifically targeted and we were able to determine they all had a similar need for our customer’s product. This list resulted in 28% new business which is an outstanding result.

Lead Generation

Lead generation is a complex and often overlooked process for many sales organizations. Don’t short change yourself or your organization by not creating an Ideal Customer Profile and then utilizing the ICP to scrutinize the leads you generate. Using a targeted method to generate leads improves your new business development success. To learn more about building a specific Ideal Customer Profile and a success driven lead generation campaign look at Positive Results Intellectual Sales Process™ for New Business Development workshop. We are conducting this workshop in public venues, as well as customizing the solution specific to organizational needs.