At ABC Business Coaching we refer to lead generation as “The Marketing Tap”. Most business owners believe that all they have to do to increase their custom is to turn on the marketing tap (spend money on advertising) and business will come their way. It’s not that simple. The reason ABC Business Coaching refers to the marketing tap is because we view many businesses as an ordinary, run-of-the-mill garden bucket. When the tap (marketing dollars) is turned on and the expectation is that the bucket (customers/ clients coming into the business) will easily fill up it is often startling to a business owner to realise that the business bucket has holes in it.
As a consequence of the bucket having holes in it, the business owner is wasting their hard earned capital as it is leaking from the business. Are you with me now? Hope so. Attached is an illustration of what I mean. As my colleagues and I explain more about why the business bucket has holes in it the illustration will change and you will be able to put yourself in the situation that most business owners find themselves in from time to time.
So the first Profit Driver is lead generation. This is an area where many business owners either spend too much money, do not spend money wisely and fail to test and measure the results of their advertising. At ABC Business Coaching we often advise a typical business owner to STOP lead generating activity until they repair the bucket. That way they can be assured that when they do turn the marketing tap on in the future they will get a consistent return on their investment!
We find that many businesses can in fact develop low cost strategies to generate leads and often reduce costs of major advertising investments through better targeting of the right customer segments.
Do you have any ideas of low cost strategies? If you do why don’t you share them with us? We would love to hear from you. Now, before you think to yourself “I’m not sharing my exclusive lead generation strategies so that my competitors will use them against me” just take a moment to think about what you are sharing. Most things have been done before and competition is good for business. Also I could mention karma and a benevolent universe…
Stay tuned because I have some doozies! The first one comes online tomorrow.
Troy Deag