I had a chat recently with an old friend who was telling me about the problems he was having with many of his customers.

“They're all tough b*stards”‘ he said. “They'll screw me down over anything. Always trying to get something for nothing.”

“Your thing about ‘loving your customers' doesn't work in my world. It's dog eat dog.”

My friend is a lovely guy, but his “world” sounds like a terrible place to be.

And in my experience, you can choose whether to be in a world like that or not.

By that I don't mean you can somehow change your mindset and the world will bend to your will (though I've definitely found that having a sunny outlook changes the way people react to you).

What I mean is that you can choose to take action to make sure you're living in a world with great clients that are a pleasure to work with.

That action is to get good at “lead generation”. To have a steady flow of new potential clients coming in to your business.

If you're in a lead desert with very few leads, you basically have to work with whoever you can get. And sadly you're going to end up with tough customers unless you're lucky.

If you have a surplus of leads, significantly more potential clients than you could work with, then you get to pick and choose. You can focus on clients who are the very best fit for you and who you're going to enjoy working with.

Simple in theory. But generating lots of high quality leads isn't easy. For many people it's the hardest part of marketing. That's why they end up desperately negotiating and bargaining with the few leads they have to persuade them to become clients.

In my next few emails I'm going to be focusing on what I've found to be the best methods of generating leads right now – particularly online.

Until then, just bear in mind: more leads = more choice.