A 4-Guide For Generating Leads Without Being Spam-y

Last month, our very own Vincent Turco generated 25 qualified 1^st sales appointments. If you ask me, that’s pretty incredible.

Get the insider details on how he did it, his targeting strategy, his scripts and more by listening to the full interview here.

Instead of keeping this process a secret, Vincent spoke with David Weinhaus from the Sales Enablement team at HubSpot to discuss his 4 step approach called “Proactive Prospecting”.

Just in case you’re one of those people that likes to read rather than listen, here’s a recap of what was discussed.

Vincent started off by saying: “Gone are the days when you leave a voicemail or send an email that says: we’re the best in the industry, and actually get anywhere. People don’t care. It doesn’t resonate.” And he’s 100% right.

To get 25 qualified sales appointments in a month, you can’t send out mass emails, or put your product or solution in someone’s face (or screen) anymore. There are specific techniques that you should be aware of.

Vincent mentioned a 4 step approach called Proactive Processing, which he uses along with these specific tips that he finds to be the most successful ways to generate leads: 

1.    Targeting

You need to start off this process by pinpointing the different verticals you want to go after. It’s impossible to target everyone- that’s why you should pick 3-4 targets to start with and focus on what their content needs are.

Whether you target by vertical, or you find another way to target such as geographically, it’s important to use targeting so that you won’t be competing against everybody else.

Vincent mentioned that Penguin Strategies generates most of its leads from the traditional way of offering gated content to download. Once someone downloads a white paper, E-book or case study, the communication doesn’t end there. Vincent follows up on each of the leads.

But that’s not enough. 

You need to be constantly looking and creating lists of prospective clients to follow up with. This may not sound like it’s 100% inbound marketing, but Vincent explains that sometimes you need to combine inbound marketing and outbound marketing to find the proper leads. Think about how many customers are out there that don’t know they need your services. There are more than you think! 

With all of the noise out there, it’s impossible to find and engage with each lead 1 on 1. You have to go out, hunt and find logical customers that fit your scope.

2.    Have a Good Reason To Reach Out

One tip Vincent suggests is to set an alert for yourself when something significant occurs with one of the companies you have your eye on. If the company raised funds or launches a new product, this raises a red flag and you should know about it!

Staying on top of what’s going on with relevant companies gives you a compelling reason to reach out to prospects because you know something has changed. You instantly have a connection that others won’t have.

A company may have not have been relevant yesterday, but now that one piece of the puzzle has changed, they could be a perfect match.

3.    Provide Value

Now that you have a good reason to email or call someone, do research before reaching out. You need to customize the type of messaging based on the person you’re speaking to in order to give them something of value. 

You should target a CEO differently than a CMO. For example, if you’re writing to a CEO you should discuss raising a round, the need for growth, or that they are hiring 5-10 more people. On the other hand, an email written to a CMO will be more focused on technical aspects, lead generating, conversion rates, etc.

Try sending out links that will be helpful to your prospect. This could mean an article from a thought leader in their field, or something in the news that may be helpful to them. The link you send them shouldn’t be about you. Show that you know what’s going on with the prospect and provide them with something helpful. This shows that you did your homework and understand their business.

Each one of your emails should be very targeted and focused. One “template email” won’t cut it if you want responses, meetings, and, more importantly, a new client.

How does Vincent manage his funnel and what do his targets look like?

When Vincent joined Penguin Strategies he was given the challenge of taking the inbound leads and prospects in the database and narrowing them down to a few hundred companies in their space. He created a sequence of emails, touches, voicemails, and other forms of communication that will generate the meetings he needs.

He created a rule for himself: “I need to be making 600-800 touches a month, which refers to real attempts- not including leaving a voicemail at a secretary’s desk, including only those who I know opened the email.” 

Vincent’s conversion ratio that between 30-40% of attempts actually turn into meetings. That means that he has around 25 meetings a month with a targeted lead.

David summarized for us: “Vincent sources about 30-40 new accounts per week, and for those he allots 200 touches in total. That’s 5-10 touches per account. For all that effort (which is a lot) he schedules 5-6 qualified appointments per week.” 

Keep in mind that if you’re not a full time business development manager, or even if you are and you’re not generated the same level of engagement, that’s ok! All you need to do is allocate 5-10 hours per week and try to implement some of these tips to help your agency generate new leads and grow.

4.    Create a Strong Call To Action That is Relevant to Your Email: 

There is a lot of thought that goes into each one of Vincent’s emails. Here are some tips he suggested: 

• Make the email personal. If you know the company is looking to hire, send them an article that may be helpful to that. After you provide them with some sort of value, steer your email to talk about how they can generate more leads. See what he did there? He steered the email back to inbound marketing.
• Keep it Short: Your email should be between around 150-200 words. This isn’t set in stone, but your message should be as brief as possible while being as meaningful as possible.
• Include a connector phrase: This ties how you’re being helpful to the prospect back to your services. So, if you’re being helpful to a prospect by offering them an article that talks about hiring for a SaaS company, your connector might be, “companies generally hiring sales people are interested in generating more leads to help keep those sales people happy. I have some ideas for you.”
• Include a strong CTA (Call To Action): End your email with something like: would that be of interest to you? Is there a good time to connect? When are you available to speak? 

You don’t need to be spam-y to generate more leads. Take these proven tips into consideration and make sure to invest time, be disciplined, and have fun!