Assess yourself! Lead generation edition, Part 2

This post is part of a three-part series about assessing your lead generation. Check out the other posts in the series!

  • Assess yourself! Lead generation series:
  • Part 3
  • Part 2 (You are here)
  • Part 1

Ready to continue assessing your lead generation? Awesome.

To recap from our first post, we’re defining lead generation as the strategic application of a deep understanding of your customer that allows you to show up in the right place, at the right time with a welcome solution to a pressing need.

Effective lead generation is a system you have control over, with outcomes that become increasingly predictable and repeatable over time.

Based on this definition, the highest level areas we need to assess are:

  • Your understanding of your customer
  • Your ability to apply that understanding…

    • …to show up in the right place, at the right time
    • …to bring a welcome solution to a pressing need
  • Your ability to systematize your application of that understanding to bring predictable and repeatable results

In our last post, we helped you assess your level of understanding of your customers. Now we’re ready to look at how well you’re currently applying that understanding.

Applying a deep understanding of your customers

Once you are confident that you truly understand your customers and the value of your role in that relationship, applying it effectively is a matter of using that knowledge as the basis for your decision-making. This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to hide a lack of customer understanding behind “best practices” that don’t end up being as effective as you’d hoped.

An effective lead generation system is nuanced based on who you are and who your customers are, but they all have two common components:

  • where and when you show up
  • the value your interaction has to your potential customer

Showing up in the right place at the right time

There is certainly value in showing up in your potential customer’s world in nearly any context, but the potency of that interaction is significantly greater if they are in a frame of mind to be aware, interested, and even pursuing an answer to the problem you can help them with.

When we’re focused on generating quality leads, those are the interactions we are looking for. We don’t need to show up everywhere, constantly. We need to show up where and when we are needed most.

How are we showing up in the right place at the right time?

  • How well do we understand the events that are happening in our customer’s world to make them realize the urgency of their need?
  • Have we identified where they are when this is happening?
  • Are we showing up in those places, right when they need us most?
  • How crowded are the places we’re showing up? How clearly are our customers able to hear our voice?

Bringing a welcome solution to a pressing need

Once we know we’re showing up in the right place at the right time, we need to put ourselves in a position to be as helpful as we can. This involves focusing on the person, the problem, and the path forward rather than focusing on the product. Product awareness will come. The goal here is to establish a trusting relationship in which you are a valued, irreplaceable contributor to where your customer wants to be.

  • How are we bringing a welcome solution to a pressing need?
  • How clearly are we empathizing with the need that they have?
  • How clearly are we communicating a new vision for what is possible?
  • How clearly are we demonstrating a path for them to get there?
  • How easy have we made it for them to take the first step?

In our next post, we’re going to walk you through assessing the system that allows you to do this repeatedly and predictably.

In the meantime, if you have questions about any of these concepts or if you’re considering a lead generation assessment, shoot me an email at sarah@andyet.com. I’d love to help. :)

If you haven’t yet, check out Part 1 and Part 3 of this series.

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