22 Mar 2023

When starting a Sales function from scratch, there are many ways to start generating leads.
When taking over an existing Sales function, there are many ways to improve lead generation.

In all cases, formulating a plan after a brief assessment of past results & potential avenues not explored yet is a good idea.

If taking over an existing process, best first to analyse both WHAT has been done and HOW it has been done - results alone are not enough to understand the full picture.

Of course most Sales execs will come in and look at the numbers - but they will not be able to understand the full picture without a deeper dive.

If you have a low conversion rate on tactic X, it might not be because the tactic is bad - it might be because the execution of that tactic has been poor.

Devil(le) is in the details.

Analyse the What

Analyse the How

Define the What Could Be Done

This is basically listing all the potential avenues to generate Outbound leads. Inbound leads being usually in the control of Marketing.

There are usually always improvement potential on the Marketing front too to get better alignment, thus improved MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads), but that is a later step.
I don't think coming in new in Sales and telling how Marketing should do their job better is a good idea.
First prove yourself - ie that Sales can generate its own leads - then align Marketing & Sales for better results on Inbound too, with the added benefit of your newly-gained credibility/clout.

"What Could Be Done" is more of a brainstorming exercise than anything else at this stage.

I include:

Data sources

Where to get data from ongoing (trigger events, new leads, etc..).

This can include:

• Linkedin (duh!)
• TAM websites scraping
• Twitter Using Twitter for Lead Generation
• external data providers Data providers for B2B sales lead generation
• competitor's websites
• industry portals & communities
• Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) / some will list their members Selling to GPOs
• etc..

Campaigns

What campaigns to run, eg

• by vertical
• competitor displacement
• by specific trigger (ie kind of event)
• for potential new partners Finding opportunities with leverage Channel Sales
• etc..

and on what channels, eg.

• email campaigns Cold Emails Email Automation for Sales outreaches
• LinkedIn Linkedin
• Twitter Using Twitter for Lead Generation
• cold calling Cold calling
• etc..

Formulate the plan

This is where all comes together.

Doesn't need to be a polished plan (except if you need to present it to the Board, etc..) - just a document in the knowledge base (eg Notion Notion ) that all involved parties can access, update and ultimately agree on.

TODO expand & add outline of LGP.