Bad Advice on B2B Lead Generation

My newsreader brought to my attention B2B lead generation advice from a popular publication, an expert proclaiming that cold calls followed up by email works. It seemed simple enough until he missed one critical point.

The advice given claims to help generate leads for sales people, starting with a cold call, then follow up by email, then repeat follow up calls. However, if you don't have experience cold calling, or permission to email, this advice given can be a recipe for disaster.

You must look out, this dumb advice is everywhere from individuals who haven't made calls before, nor know the first thing about business advertising. Pestering is not prospecting, cold calling provides no value.

A principle with a lead generation company that promises "results" provides a surefire strategy to get blocked by any executive level decision maker -- yet his advice is given as gospel for making sales on a cold list.

He advocates cold calling someone, sending unsolicited email, then following up 10 to 20 times with additional calls. He claims, that by the time you talk with the executive they will feel they "know you."

Sure, the executive will know your are a damn pest and ask you not to ever call again. They will probably tell their front office people to ignore you too.

With so much bad advice, how do you really know what works for warming up cold lists? How can you contact executive level decision makers without raising barriers that get you blacklisted?

First, start by establishing credibility through a multi-channel approach that positions you as a valuable resource, rather than a pest. This means lowering the barrier to entry using a low-risk offer for information, tools, or resources of interest to your decision maker.

Provide value first with content that gets an executive interested in the possibility of what you offer. Sell them through direct channels on your general concept, then use direct response to have them call you for a specific solution.

You can use mistake reports in a two-step marketing campaign. Or, a series of introduction letters inviting a contact in exchange for tools. Maybe, a permission based email newsletter that addresses pains this decision maker feels.

Do anything but pester this busy executive! If you want to motivate executives to buy from you, then you can't push them away with tacky sales pestering. Beware of bad advice, dialing for dollars on a cold list is ineffective grunt work.

I lay out several real, proven in the trenches strategies for turning cold names into new customers in "How to Turn Cold Leads Into $100,000 in New Business Without a Single Cold Call."

Meanwhile, position yourself by being where an executive looks for information. Pestering them with cold calls is just going to make you look unprofessional and desperate.

© 2009 Ask Justin Hitt, All rights reserved.

Justin Hitt helps sales professionals attract profitable customers though b2b lead generation systems that actively position you as a resource. Discover what will work for you, visit http://JustinHitt.com/