Most of us get Lead Generation completely backwards.

We're a bit like the guy who wants to get a date and obsesses about whether he should be going out to clubs, using a dating app or asking friends for introductions – and completely forgets to smarten himself up a bit and try to look his best some people will actually want to have a date with him.

In this video I explain the big mistake most businesses make with lead generation and the simple step you can take to turn that round and get people wanting to meet with you.

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Video Transcript

Hi – it's Ian here – welcome to this first lead generation tip and it's a really important one. If you listen to nothing else I say make sure you listen to this.

Because most of us get lead generation completely backwards. It's a bit like if you've got a friend who's single and they're looking to get a date and they come over asking for your advice but they haven't washed for a week and their hair's all scruffy and they're wearing really old clothes and then they're asking you “well should I use this dating app or should I go out to clubs or can I get introductions from friends” and you've just got to tell them it doesn't matter what you do unless you get yourself sorted out and get yourself cleaned up so you'll actually look attractive to someone then no one is going to want to go out on a date with you no matter what method you use.

And it's very much the same when it comes to our marketing and lead generation. Most of us look at lead generation completely from our own perspective about what we want to get from the process. We want a call with someone, we want to get a meeting with them, we want them to join our email list – instead of looking at it from their perspective and what would make us attractive to them. What would make them want to have a meeting with us?

Now if you think that they might want to have a meeting with you to explain your services or so you can ask them questions to find out their problems so you can recommend a solution – that's the wrong answer. Ninety-five percent of the time clients are not yet ready to buy so they don't want to hear about your services and they don't want to talk about their problems yet and get solutions recommended because they're nowhere near
that part of the process. Even if they could be brilliant clients later on, most of the time they're not ready yet so you need to think about what would be valuable what would be attractive to them about having a meeting or a call with you or joining your email list or interacting with you on social media. What would make that valuable to them *right then* not in the future, not when they're working with you but right then and there. What makes that meeting valuable?

Something that's always worked for me is to prepare a little presentation or a discussion about key industry trends – the big things that are going to be affecting those potential clients. That's something that clients are always interested in hearing.

They're always keen to hear “what are going to be the big issues that I'm going to have to face in the future?”
For you it might be something else – it doesn't have to be industry trends, it could be case studies of some really important work you've done in an area that's vital to that potential client. It could be anything as long as the client says it's valuable, as long as they would want to have a meeting with you. Because if you can identify a reason why that potential client would want to have a meeting with you that would make it attractive to them then all your lead generation becomes exponentially easier and exponentially more effective.

It doesn't really matter whether you're using LinkedIn or Facebook or presentations or networking or whatever it is you want to try – if you are attractive you'll find it much easier to get a date. And thankfully in the lead generation world it's a lot easier to be attractive by having something valuable to offer than it is for any of us to become more attractive in the dating sense.

So that's your task for this week: think about what it is you can offer what kind of value can you give to people to become leads – so to have a meeting with you, to have a call with you, to join your email list – what can you offer to them that's incredibly valuable to them that would make them *want* to do it. Rather than seeing lead generation as somehow some way of persuading or manipulating or coercing people into having that meeting with you, make them *want* it. Because if they want it it's all going be much easier.

That's it for now – see you next week and don't forget to subscribe. Either hit the button there or there depending on where you're
watching this from.

Cheers