1. GENERATING LEADS

2. What is a Sales Lead?
A prospective consumer of a product or service that is created when an individual or business shows interest and provides his or her contact information.

3. What is a Sales Lead? – Cont’d
Businesses gain access to sales leads through advertising, trade shows, direct mailings and other marketing efforts.
They can also purchase sales leads from third-party companies - sponsorships.
NB: A sales lead is not a sales prospect, meaning that further qualification of the lead is necessary to determine intent and interest.

4. Requirements In order to generate sales leads, you need three things:
A written profile of your target prospect,
A list of suspects containing potential prospects,
A method of reaching your sales prospects.

5. Methods of reaching your sales prospects.

6. Complementary Partner Referrals
If you are selling business to business, you want to strike up relationships with sales from companies who call on the same businesses as you do.
An example is if you sell life insurance, then partner with a few general business and pensions staff.
These reps call on the same customers as you and you complement each other by sharing leads and information about customers and prospects.

7. Cold Calling
As much as nearly everyone dislikes this one, it is very effective for sales lead generation when executed properly. If you consistently prospect for leads by phone, you will consistently generate sales leads.

8. Live Seminars
Live seminars are a great sales lead generation technique because you are usually delivering your a pitch to a prospect very early in their buying process.
The key to a successful seminar is offering a solution to a problem that your target market really wants to solve. You can give the pitch yourself, or get one of your company executives to do it (sometimes business "celebrity" can help pull more sales prospects in).

9. Trade Shows/Fairs
Trade shows are a good way generate sales leads if you can find events highly targeted to your prospect audience. Often such events yield low-quality sales leads because they are attended by the recommenders and influencers and rather than the true decision-makers.
Often this method is rated lower on the list, yet it is a valuable one if your company has the budget and there are industry events well-targeted to your audience.

10. Mass Mailings
Sales letters are one of the more underused sales lead generation methods. There is an entire industry of people dedicated to selling this way called direct marketing. But most field sales reps and business professionals don't know how to use this technique well.
Success with this method comes as a result of mailing a well-written letter to a good quality list of names (quality = targeted at your audience).

11. Advertising
This method can be highly effective when done right. You must find publications that are able to deliver your target audience.
You must run ads that stimulate people to take action.
To generate sales leads, you must avoid big-company style image ads.

12. Internet Advertising
This one is very appropriate for small businesses and some independent professionals. With a well-designed website, you can generate sales leads through "ads" that the search engines create from your webpages.
If you know what keywords your prospects are likely to search for you with, then you can generate very targeted and qualified leads.
This method is not for everyone though, as your prospects must be searching for something related to your products, services or the problems that you solve.

13. Publications
A sales rep or business owner could create an newsletter and mail it to sign-ups from an offer presented at a seminar, at a trade show, in a mass mailing, in an advertisement, or on a cold call.
If you are a sales rep, why not create your own newsletter? You could send out industry news and tips to suspects in your market. Eventually a few of them will become customers because you are on their mind more often than your competition.