Each month, I have the distinct pleasure of helping dozens of entrepreneurs improve their lead generation process.

“Charlie, help! I need more leads.”

On the surface, MORE LEADS is NOT the easiest, quickest, or most efficient way to scale the business.

^ Read that again.

When someone asks me for more leads, what’s really happening is that their business is slowly taking on water… And rather than fix the holes, they want someone to hand them more buckets to bail them out.

WHY?

Because if you’re not growing fast enough, it’s never a lead generation issue.

It’s ALWAYS a conversion issue.

If you’re converting enough leads, you can acquire leads from hundreds of sources (maybe even thousands). We live in a day and age where there are more sources, more ad platforms, and more technologies available to reach your ideal client than ever before.

Here’s the problem:

Not long ago, I received a call from a 7-figure business owner who inquired about a lead generation strategy. Even though he was willing to pay me $2,500 an hour for a customized strategy, I insisted we do a quick audit of his current lead and sales conversion process before I’d agree to work with them.

Remember, 95% of the time, it’s not a lead problem – it’s a conversion problem.

So, even before you pile on more leads into the “boat” (which almost always comes at a cost), why don’t you look for more ways to increase the value of the leads you’re already getting? 

In the case of the business owner I just mentioned, within 30-minutes of analyzing his sales process, we quickly discovered that 45%-55% of his leads weren’t showing up for his first call!

45%-55%!

That’s a lot of missed opportunity!

So, instead of him hiring me to help him acquire more leads – now we’re working on a strategy to reduce his no-show rate. For the same cost and time that it takes him to generate the same amount of leads, he’s now going to make more money without any extra effort or expense.

Looking for more tips to improve your outbound campaigns? Check out this related piece on increasing the response to your cold email outreach.

Let me introduce you to our Lead Generation Audit so you can begin to see where the holes are in your process – and start to identify the areas you can improve. 

You must compartmentalize each step of the lead generation process. The “compartmentalization” will allow you to quickly identify what’s working and what’s not working so you can focus on the key areas that need improvement.

Here’s what the typical lead generation process looks like:

Each process has its own compartment, and each compartment can be further divided into subcompartments…

Let me briefly explain each section:

TRAFFIC: This where you’re getting your leads. Maybe you’re using Facebook, LinkedIn, cold email, Adwords, organic leads from your website, referrals, etc.  

Every traffic source responds differently. 

Right now, we’re testing 6 different traffic sources at once with a client.

With one source, we’re experiencing a negative ROI.

With the 5 other sources, we have a positive ROI between 23% and 41% – just on the initial sale!

If we tested our lead generation funnel just with the losing source of traffic, we would have assumed the funnel didn’t work, missing out on 6 figures in sales just in the last few months.

BAIT PIECE: This is the message you’re using to attract the attention of your prospect. Maybe it’s an offer for a strategy session, demo, free sample, webinar invite, or special report.

Each bait piece has a different response based on the friction level perceived by the prospect  (I’ll explain more later).

The bait piece is what stops the prospect and causes her to pay attention.

CTA (Call-to-Action): What are you asking them to do once you have their attention? Submit an email address, reply to schedule a call, complete a form?

Someone once asked me: “How come I’m not getting people to fill out my form?” When I checked it out, they asked people 15 questions before they got access to the information… 

That’s way too much!

FOLLOW UP: This is an important part of the lead generation process because, while it’s important to initially capture the lead, what happens next?

Sadly, most people have a completely inadequate follow up process. This is where you want to continue delivering high value information (not sales rhetoric). You’re establishing a relationship, looking to build trust and likability.

TELEPHONE SALES: Most commonly found in B2B, you prospect and immediately try to get someone on the phone for a free consultation or strategy session.

The important part of this lead generation process is to ensure you have follow up – and reminders before each call. Failure to do this will result in many no-shows.  Furthermore, you need to tell people WHY it’s important to get on the call and what BENEFIT they can expect by attending.

Don’t make it all about you… And for God’s sake, PLEASE don’t tell them it’s so you can “learn more about their company!” That has sales written all over it.

INITIAL SALE: Commonly in the B2C space, you might have someone register for a webinar, watch a video, etc. – then give them an offer to make an initial sale.

Some people start with low value offers (aka “tripwires”), while others prefer to go immediately for a higher value sale right off the bat (I’m in this camp).

These are the compartments of your lead generation and conversion process. In part 2, we’ll dissect each piece by looking at critical questions you must ask yourself at each stage…

And we’ll address the biggest problem that affects each compartment: friction.