The Size of Your Paycheck Starts With The Quality of Your Leads

One phrase that I often hear from prospective lead generation consulting clients is,

“I don’t want to generate a heap of rubbish leads - they need to be of high quality”.

I couldn’t agree more. That’s because the quality of your clients and the size of your paycheck begins at the lead generation level. The way you prepare prospects to contact you via your ads, your website, your free or fee-based information products, your company logo and “look and feel” - all influence how quickly and effectively you can make sales.

In my own business and when working with clients, I don’t just want to generate “qualified” leads but highly qualified, ready-to-buy leads. There’s a distinct difference. Highly-qualified, ready-to-buy leads are:

• Easier and faster to close
• Less price-focused and more value-focused
• More motivated to succeed
• Tend to understand what you do and why your different - don’t require a lot of time to educate

So, recognizing that what you do at the lead gen level influences what happens further down your sales pipeline, here are five strategies for increasing the quality of your leads:

1) Target the right prospects

Many businesspeople and marketers are unwilling to laser-focus on the specific prospect group that they can help most. For example, if a mechanic is an expert at restoring old BMWs, instead of concentrating on that market he sometimes makes the mistake of trying to appeal to all car owners.

Targeting via psychographic profile can also be very effective - a psychographic factor describes consumers on the basis of some psychological trait, characteristic or lifestyle. I favour using pyschographics in preference to demographic (age and gender) targeting alone.

How do you target a particular group? Start with your headlines. e.g.

“Does Not Having Enough Money to Retire On Keep You Up at Night?”

A headline like the one above (for, say, a financial planner) would tend to bring motivated prospects into the marketing funnel.

2) Pre-Educate

Especially if your products / services are higher priced, intangible, complex or in a highly competitive industry, it’s critical that you educate prospects about your offering and value.

There are many ways to do this including downloadable Special Reports; White Papers; Questionnaires, Surveys and Audits; Seminars and Events.

You can also monetize the education process by charging for materials. This not only generates a revenue streams but also forces motivated prospects to “self-select”. Self-selection is a critical component of the most successful lead generation programs.

3) Pre-Qualify

Self-selection is one form of pre-qualification. Others include describing whom your product or service is for.

e.g. “Our no-deposit first home loans may be perfect for you if you have been in steady employment for at least 2 years and have a income of $60K+ per annum.”

Phrases like these reduce unqualified buyers from your sales funnel.

4) Pre-Sell

This one goes without saying. If your ads, sales letters or other materials are compelling enough, you can actually make 95% of the sale before the prospect even speaks to you. All you have to do is answer 1 or 2 questions and then finalise the paperwork. A pre-sold lead is the ultimate outcome of a successful lead generation program.

If you have to arm-wrestle every prospect into buying from you, the chances are you’re not doing enough pre-selling at the lead gen level.

5) Future Pace

Future Pacing is “showing” the prospect what their life will be like in the future once they have your solution. It’s a technique that can be used in print as well as in a sales setting, and makes the benefits you offer much more immediate.

Future pacing backed up by testimonials and case studies are even better. “Social proof” elements such as these are an integral part of many successful lead generation efforts.

What to do now

How well is your lead generation process working? Your “gut feel” should give you the answer. Is converting every lead into a sale a battle? Or do you often find yourself twiddling your thumbs waiting for leads to come in (hint: they won’t just materialise - you have to do something)? Although this post deals more with lead quality than lead quantity, by implementing some of the concepts above you should see a significant improvement in results.

Leave a comment to share your thoughts about generating qualified leads.

Will Swayne Internet Lead Generation Guy

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