Business development is the lifeblood for high-growth B2B businesses. For most businesses, new opportunities and pipeline growth stem from existing clients and referrals. But when referrals decrease and leads dry up, then what? Without a strategy in place, you’re behind the curve and working twice as hard to develop a reactive vs. a proactive approach to lead generation.
We’ve mapped out three signs that your organization is ready for a true lead generation program.
- The 1st sign – your network, contacts, and friend-of-a-friend referrals start to slow down.
Entrepreneurs and business owners tend to oversimplify business development, relying on their network (LinkedIn, rolodex, etc.) to be the cornerstone of lead generation. While leveraging personal and business contacts may get you through the first year of business, your often well into your second year when you realize you’ve run aground. Ideally, businesses begin a lead generation program 6-12 months before they need leads as it takes time to build a foundation.
Another issue that arises when relying primarily on your network? You miss out on research, candid feedback, and intel about barriers to sale. A personal connection creates a shortcut – and while that’s nice in the short term, it also means you’re missing out on research that could inform or modify your sales strategy, messaging, marketing materials, and more.
- The 2nd sign – you want your sales leaders focused on closing opportunities rather than sourcing leads.
When your sales team is working on 3 or 4 leads (or better yet, closing deals), they have little or no time to nurture warm leads. While this is great for productivity, it is not conducive to overall growth.
A multi-channel, multi-touch lead generation program will help feed the early stages of your sales process by building awareness, creating brand credibility in the market, and generating warm leads. It also frees up your team to focus on the bottom of the funnel opportunities and closing deals.
- The 3rd sign – you have operational capacity to bring on a large number of clients
Once organizations have reached the point of scale — the place that every organization wants to get to – they have the right processes in place and can easily handle more business.
At ROOT3, we develop lead generation programs that drive results and we’re driven by a relentless willingness to research, analyze, and optimize tactics across multiple channels. If you want to learn more about our approach to lead generation, click here.
