My Lead Agency's Ramblings & Rants

New Year, New Lead Generation Beginnings - 8 Easy Steps

  

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It's that time of year.  You know the time.  The time when you reflect on the fact that, from September to December, you didn't accomplish nearly as much as you'd hoped or planned to.  Life got in the way.  Work got in the way of work.  Stuff happened but now you need to really buckle down and focus on demand generation, business development, guerrilla marketing, and general Revenue Creation 101.  All I can say to you is this - I feel your pain.  I get it.  As my New Year's resolution, I propose we travel this road together.  Here is what I plan to do.  I'd love your feedback.  Tell me how my plan compares to yours.  Did I miss anything?

1. Write down everything that's important.  I've made three lists:
   1. Immediate To-Do's.
   2. Client Deliverables
   3. Business Development programs
2. Get as many of the To-Do's off of your list as possible.  Just go nuts.  They'll keep you up at night if you don't do them.  Remove that distraction.  Stop putting off the little things.  You'll feel better.
3. Create a calendar of your daily must-do tasks.  You know what I'm talking about:
   1. Write that daily blog post.
   2. Respond to active new media conversations relevant to your industry, with active link-backs to your content.
   3. Post your thoughts, opinions, etc, on Twitter, again with link-backs to your content.
   4. Grow your list of Twitter followers daily.  Add at least five to ten new Follows every day with people you think are interesting and relevant to you.
   5. Read at least one to three articles of content daily to remain up-to-speed on what's happening in the industry.
   6. Dedicate time for at least ten emails and ten phone calls related to business development and lead generation every day.
   7. Reserve a consistent period of time for client deliverables.
   8. Reserve a consistent period of time for client discussions, phone calls, and emails.
   9. Be consistent.  Be committed to your schedule.
4. Implement a Project Management solution, such as BasecampHQ, and then commit your time in writing for each of your deliverables and projects.
5. Create repeatable templates, ideally within your Project Management solution, for each repeatable task.  For instance, if you have a standard method of on-boarding new clients, make a template for that so that you can quickly schedule the tasks, and the timelines, as they become clients.  It makes it easier for you and your team, as well as ensures the client is properly managed from the beginning.
6. Create a project plan for each client deliverable.  Again, if possible, update your Project Management solution with the tasks, dates, task owners, and any relevant and associated documents.  This will ensure you are committed to the delivery, and timelines, of these tasks.  Effectively, you're making yourself accountable to yourself.  I don't know about you, but I hate letting myself down.
7. Use automation as much as possible to make your time more effective.  Currently, we are trialing a CRM product called Insightly because it seamlessly integrates with our Google Apps email and calendaring solution.  We never have to leave Google Apps to update our CRM.  That's efficient. If our trial goes well, we'll consider replacing BasecampHQ with Insightly for our project management, thus creating a single environment for our technology infrastructure.  That's our ultimate goal.
8. Set goals.  Measure them daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly.  Be candid with yourself. Do not make excuses.  If you hold yourself accountable, you'll love the final results when you look back in six months time.

I know it all sounds like a lot of administration and paperwork.  Trust me - it will pay huge dividends if you invest now for your long-term success.  At most, we're talking about a couple of days doing the initial effort.  Afterwards, we're talking about small daily updates; almost no time at all, really, in the big picture of your day.  Most importantly, since people will be slowly getting back to work this week, with minimal expectations of you, now is the time when you can truly afford to make the investment of time and planning and scheduling to ensure you keep your New Years Lead Generation resolutions.  Remember - you're not alone.  We're in this together.

Happy New Years.