Lead Generation Is All about Closing the Gap
between "Where You Are" and "Where You Want to Be"

To understand Lead Generation, and the fundamental role it plays, we have to set the context.

In short, the principal goal of the Lead Generation function is to produce "qualified sales leads". These are opportunities where there is a reasonable and manageable chance for a company to successfully close a profitable sale.

If you've spent any time in Marketing, then you certainly understand the implications of this definition. That is, this definition implies that there's no such thing as an MQL, or an SQL, for that matter. And, in fact, it turns out that those are just nonsense concepts made up by Inbound Marketing people to justify getting paid to produce junk. And the only thing that matters, when it comes to generating leads, is whether the lead is worth the salesperson's time and effort, or not.

Depending on the situation, a qualified sales lead can be defined as an appointment with, or an expression of interest by, a qualified prospect. That appointment can either be formal or informal. It can be verbal, by email, by telephone, by mail, by RFQ, or in person. A qualified prospect is generally someone who has the ability to buy, who has a qualifying need (i.e. a need that you can fulfill), and who wants to talk with you about how you can help. There may also be attributes of urgency, budget and/or authority that contribute to the definition, depending on the situation.

The issue, for most businesses that invest in Marketing, is that if the lead doesn't actually don't want to engage with you, the process is, pretty much, a waste of time and money.

The process of generating leads often involves, at a minimum, the following objectives:

1. Identifying potential prospects
2. Getting their attention
3. Stimulating their interest
4. Getting the prospect to want to consider buying, and then
5. Getting the prospect to take a meaningful step to move the sales process forward.

Along the way, the Lead Generation process often includes steps to qualify the prospect, i.e. to assure that they're worth the time, expense and effort needed to sell and serve them. But the LeadGen process essentially follows the classic AIDA sales model, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action, albeit with the additional front-end step of identifying potential prospects.

Given the objectives of the LeadGen process to generate qualified sales leads, there are often dozens of strategies, tactics and activities that can be employed, either directly in support of these objectives, or ancillary to them. For example, a LeadGen program can include market research, list acquisition and clean-up, branding, content and case history creation, articulating value proposition, positioning, advertising, promotion, PR, telemarketing, pre-qualification, Web or eCommerce site development, blogging, CRM customization or implementation, DM/DR, sales training, strategy development, pricing, customer service, packaging, collateral material development and more. This is because of the pivotal role that Lead Generation plays in the achievement of the company's revenue goals - so everything's on the table. And just as important, if the pieces don't all fit together under one process or conceptual framework like Lead Generation, then it's highly unlikely to work. So there are sometimes Project Management and other accountabilities, including accountability for revenue, often built in.

The LeadGen model provides, therefore, a convenient and effective tool for Market planning. And it is often the only practical framework for debugging a failing Marketing or Sales program.

To be sure, an argument is made in the industry that trivializes Lead Generation, relegating it as an afterthought behind other, arguably more prestigious, Marketing functions such as content creation, Web site development, advertising or branding. The problem with this view is twofold. First, defining LeadGen down to, say, telemarketing or a direct mail program, makes an assumption about what tactics should be employed, and it's probably going to turn out to be wrong. Second, and more important, it doesn't make sense to have a process designed to generate qualified sales leads that is subordinate in a strategic plan to one of its own constituent tactics.

Ultimately though, as we'll see, the only way to achieve accountability throughout the business development process is with a cross-functional hybrid process, like Lead Generation, that covers both Marketing and Sales. And that's the most compelling reason to use it, and focus on Lead Generation as a critical part of your strategy.

Prominant among the myths and misconceptions associated with Lead Generation, in particular today, are these:

• The most common misconception about Lead Generation, as indicated above, is that it's just another name for telemarketing, or some other promotional tactic. The problem is that most people expect a Lead Generation program to produce "qualified sales leads", while they rarely impose such an expectation on other promotional activities. This taxonomic bait-and-switch often leads to significant disappointment and arguments over expectations and results.


• In another taxonomic ruse, when talking about Lead Generation, many digital marketing companies refer to a deliverable they call the "Marketing Qualified Lead," in contrast to a "Sales Qualified Lead." In the real world though, anything that's not a "Sales Qualified Lead" is technically referred to as "junk" or "waste". But somehow Marketing departments get rewarded for generating MQLs anyway (often, just before they change employers).


• Another popular concept among Marketing professionals is "Lead Scoring." While Lead Scoring is looked at as "putting lipstick on a pig" by most salespeople, a more nuanced understanding of the sales process would reflect the fact that the quality and value of a given lead depends on the situation of the salesperson assigned to handle it at the time it's assigned - something that most lead scoring systems can't accommodate.


• Another myth, this one promulgated by the inbound marketing companies, is that "57% of the decision process is completed before a prospect ever engages with a salesperson." This particular piece of folderal completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of prospects are unaware that they even have a need for your product - therefore depriving the marketer of the vast majority of the opportunity.


• And even Wikipedia chimes in with their own dose of nonsense, as they define Lead Generation as "the initiation of consumer interest or enquiry into products or services of a business." But what does that even mean? Does it mean you're running an ad? Does it mean you're making cold calls? They partially answer the question by defining a lead - incorrectly - as "the contact information and, in some cases, demographic information of a customer who is interested in a specific product or service." So Lead Generation means buying a list??? And if they're already a "customer," why bother?

You can learn more about some of the myths and misconceptions in Marketing and Sales here. But clearly there's something missing - not just with the definition of Lead Generation, but with Marketing and Sales in general today.

Classically, when a company fails to achieve its revenue goals, everyone will claim that they did their job. They'll say that either someone else on the team didn't do their job (i.e. finger pointing), or that management didn't allocate enough resources to do a job that needed to get done (i.e. blaming the boss). This can manifest in a number of ways:

• The Marketing department claims that they ran the ads, built the Web sites, promoted the products, and generated traffic, etc. But the media was too crowded, so they couldn't break through the clutter.


• The Inside Sales department claims they generated leads, but the Salespeople weren't competent enough to close them.


• The Sales team claims that they booked the demos, but either no one showed up, the price was too high, there was no need, or competition sniped the deal.


• The Chief Revenue Officer claims that the strategy was fine, but the Marketing and Sales departments simply didn't execute effectively.


• And everyone's collecting a paycheck while they're floating their resumes.

This lack of accountability is equally acute among the service providers.

• List vendors claim their lists are fine, but they bury their definition of "quality," which doesn't match yours, deep in the contract.


• Call centers define a qualified lead by a job title because it makes it easier to agree on the lead qualification criteria, knowing that job title has nothing to do with need.


• The pay-per-lead companies guarantee results, but you have to sue them to get your deposit back when they don't pan out.


• This is exascerbated by the Salespeople who claim that, "if you can just get me in the door, I can close anyone."


• The platform providers tell you everything you need to do to get visibility, expect for the one thing you ended up not doing.


• The software providers assert that their software worked exactly as promised; but that it was never intended to do the job that you actually needed it to do.


• The Intent Signal people tell you that you're over-interpreting the meaning of the intent signal, or setting the triggering intensity too low.


• And channel partners who claim to "own the market" just happen to not know anybody at the companies you're targeting.


• ...And so on, and so on.

As they say, success has many fathers; but failure is an orphan. And so the problem remains: How do you get it to actually work? And how do you create an accountable process?

To be clear, assigning KPIs, or demanding that employees or vendors put some "skin in the game," doesn't solve the problem. Given the current state of Marketing and Sales there are simply too many moving parts, and too many opportunities for escaping responsibility, to assign accountability. The process itself has to create it.

And Lead Generation - with its focus on generating qualified sales leads - is the answer.

A Typical B2B Sell Cycle, Overlaid on the Sales Funnel Model

Overview of the Sell Cycle

The sales funnel concept is best understood, and therefore best leveraged, when seen from two perspectives: the Buyer's perspective and the Seller's perspective.

As seen from the Buyer's perspective (in the top row), the process usually starts out with an assumption that potential Buyers are unaware of the Seller, and are unconcerned with what the Seller can do. Through a series of Marketing and Sales activities on the Seller's part that we'll discuss in a moment however, the Buyer becomes initially interested, then more and more interested, until they get to the point where they decide to consider, and hopefully buy, the Seller's product.

To cause that to happen the Seller usually needs to do several things. They usually need to identify potential Buyers, they need to create awareness through some sort of promotion, they need to stimulate interest with some kind of hoook, qualify potential Buyers, and engage potential Buyers in a conversation so they can together uncover needs and build value, eventually increasing the level of interest to the point where the prospect decides to buy.

These two threads come together in the steps of the Sell Cycle, shown in the middle track above, which are:

1. Create awareness
2. Stimulate initial interest
3. Get in the door
4. Qualify the prospect
5. Uncover needs
6. Cover your bases
7. Build value
8. Meet decision criteria
9. Close

This approach, which is derived from the Consultative, SPIN and Solution Selling models, should be viewed flexibly, rather than as a strictly linear process. Also, while how a particular Seller uncovers needs, creates urgency, and builds value is beyond the scope of this discussion, ultimately all the steps will typically need to be done in order to achieve success.

To be clear, "demoting" Lead Generation to the status of an activity or tactic, say, by equating it with promotion or telemarketing (as opposed to its true function of tying together Marketing and Sales) ignores what most companies expect and require of the function: the generation of "qualified sales leads" that have a reasonable chance of closing. In fact, Lead Generation is not only the higher-order process shown above, but it's the only approach that can work.

Ultimately, of course, if you don't care about the quality of the leads then there's no real reason to adopt this model. But lacking excess demand and excess capacity, a Lead Generation effort that includes lead qualification is essential.

Designing an effective Lead Generation program usually involves applying certain proven Marketing and Sales principles to the business's unique sales and marketing situation. But developing the strategy tends to be the easy part. The challenge, at most companies, is that people working in functions such as marketing, advertising, IT, and sales will tend to resist subordinating their authority and perspective to this Lead Generation paradigm, or even to the discipline of the Sales Funnel.

One reason this happens is that Lead Generation, as a function, is often seen as less glamorous or less important than, say, inbound marketing or content marketing - even though they're actually tactics that fall entirely within the Lead Generation process.

Another common source of resistance is that the term "sales lead" has been trivialized by the list vendors, with people often confusing a "qualified sales lead" with a "name on a mailing list".

Finally, an additional push-back occasionally arises when companies hire a Chief Revenue Officer. Not surprisingly, companies often hire a CRO because they're not making their numbers, their marketing programs aren't producing adequate qualified sales leads, or there's a lot of finger-pointing between Marketing and Sales - the very same reasons for adopting the Lead Generation model. But there are two problems with hiring a CRO to solve the problem. First, while CROs are expected to have experience and training in both Marketing and Sales, rarely is their training and experience adequate. (Conferring the title accomplishes nothing.) Second and most important, the problem isn't the need for mediation between departments; the problem is usually that the company's Marketing and Sales strategies are flawed. Complicating this is that there are just more gaps between Marketing and Sales today than been have ever existed before, primarily because of the digital techniques and technologies that are ascendant. And then there are ancillary issues surrounding the Marketing and Sales functions, as well as accountability issues, that a change in personnel, or management structure, or even a change in strategy, can't fix. What's needed is a different way of looking at the problem - a different paradigm.

On the other hand, if a company is unable to achieve success due to a failure in the Sell Cycle, and the failure isn't just due to poor execution, adopting the Lead Generation paradigm is the most reliable, easiest and most effective way to solve the problem - even if it requires changing personnel.

Given the approach described above, it's worth noting that the Lead Generation function can also address many critical issues in the later stages of the Sell Cycle. This can include Covering Bases by finding additional needs, uncovering and addressing hidden objections, finding additional decision makers and decision influencers, resurrecting leads, and driving resells and upsells.