Jeff Josephson Of LeadGen.com On The 5 Proven Strategies for Increasing Lead Generation
An Interview with Rachel Kline
Ask questions, be empathetic, and listen to the answers — whatever media you’re using
Too many marketers care more about their products than about the prospects and their needs. Even if the prospect is busy or nasty, they’re still human; and if they believe you really care, they’re more likely to buy from you. We’ve hired (and fired) hundreds of telemarketers and salespeople over the years. And if someone just smiles-and-dials, and doesn’t establish rapport and credibility, they soon gone. On the other hand, many of our good people have made long-term friends with our client’s prospects!
Generating quality leads is crucial for businesses in today’s competitive landscape, and finding innovative and effective ways to attract potential customers has become a top priority. In this interview series, we are talking with marketing experts, industry professionals, and thought leaders who can share insights and stories from their experience about the best strategies for effective lead generation. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Josephson.
Jeff has over 35 years of experience in Marketing and Sales, successfully bringing many new technologies and services to market including fiber optics, broadband, on-demand video and 3D printing. He has helped thousands of businesses increase their sales, market share and profitability using a time-tested approach to new business development, documented in his new book “Lead Generation: The Missing Link between Marketing and Sales”.
Thank you for doing this with us! Before we begin, our readers would like to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this career path?
I’ve always had a passion for Marketing and Sales, and in particular, how the two interact. Often, they exist as separate functions, which leads to finger-pointing and often failure. I’ve spent my career figuring out how to make them work together, and better. And simply focusing on that issue has led to enormous success for my employers and our clients.
Can you share with our readers the most interesting or amusing story that has occurred to you in your career so far? Can you share the lesson or takeaway you took from that story?
I’m not sure people will find it to be interesting or amusing, but being the first Marketing person in Western Electric (the manufacturing division of the Bell System,) where everyone else was an Engineer, made me keenly aware of how little I knew. So I accepted my ignorance and asked a lot of questions. I also ended up doing a lot of market research, where you have to feign ignorance and ask a lot of questions — which I eventually started calling “ignorance-based Marketing”. And when I got back into Sales Management again, asking a lot of questions and being a little ignorant was very helpful — as it enables you to uncover needs and build value. So I guess the takeaway is that a little ignorance goes a long way.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I just finished publishing my book, “Lead Generation: The Missing Link between Marketing and Sales”. It tells you everything you need to know in order to be able to develop and implement an effective Marketing and Sales program. I’m on a mission to reduce the business failure rate, which I hope will help people.
For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a bit about your experience with Lead Generation? Can you share an anecdote or two that illustrates your experience in this area?
As you can infer from our name, LeadGen.com, we’ve done hundreds of lead generation campaigns, some going on for decades, so I’m not sure how to pick just one. But I would say that the key is this: There are certain fundamentals of Marketing and Sales that have nothing to do with the product or the media that you have to be aware of, build, and attend to. If you get them right, then your Marketing and Sales strategies are more likely to succeed (assuming they’re appropriate and they do what they’re supposed to do.) But if you don’t, then it likely won’t work, no matter what you do. But most people miss the fundamentals, and therefore they underperform, or fail.
For example, we had a Big 4 client in the Consulting practice, and they wanted to penetrate a new market by running a seminar series. They had broken their pick pitching the service with another vendor, and then in-house, so they came to us. We focused the marketing program on the problem it was designed to solve, and ended up filling the series.
How do you determine which channels to invest in for lead generation, and which ones have been most successful for you?
The key, in most cases, is to use media that your target market is already using. The problem, of course, is that the platforms will tell you that your prospects are there, when they really aren’t. So you have to solve that problem first. But just because you CAN use a channel, it doesn’t mean that you should.
How do you balance lead quantity with lead quality? What metrics do you use to measure the quality of your leads, and how do you ensure sales and marketing are aligned?
Lead quality is 90% of the game, which we almost always define according to whether the lead is worth the salesperson’s time. Or, put another way, “MQL” is just another name for waste. Once you get the quality right then you can cost-reduce, if necessary. But if a lead isn’t at least a “qualified prospect” who has a qualifying need, and who wants to talk to a salesperson, it isn’t a lead.
In my view, the only way to insure that Marketing and Sales are aligned is if they’re both measured according to the Funnel Report Revenue Forecast as defined by Miller and Heiman in their book, “Strategic Selling”.
What are the biggest challenges you see companies facing when it comes to lead generation, and how do you suggest they overcome them?
The main challenge is that the platforms gate access to the market, and therefore limit your ability to gain market share. The second challenge is that the Marketing profession refuses to be accountable for sales. And so you get activity without ROI. The solution to the first problem is going to be dependent on what you’re selling, and to whom; but it often means going around the platforms, or wiring the game. The solution to the second problem is bring Marketing into the Funnel Management and/or Territory Management process, and laying a bogie on them.
What role do marketing automation and CRM systems play in your lead generation strategy, and how do you use technology or AI to streamline the process?
CRMs are useful tools, of course, because you have to be able to keep track of the opportunities. But most Marketing Automation is designed to speed up or cost-reduce a process that might not actually be working. Making something more efficient that isn’t generating qualified leads in the first place is another name for insanity. I’m truly astounded by the horrible response rates and conversion rates that people get away with today. But I guess they make it up in volume.
As for AI, it depends on what it was trained on. Most of what I’ve seen suggests it was trained on nonsense, but that will change at some point.
Can you share an example of a successful lead generation campaign you’ve led? What made it so effective?
We were recently asked to develop and implement a Lead Generation program for an app developer. During the planning process, we needed to do a little primary market research to confirm the existence of the market — e.g. understand the need from the customer’s perspective, confirm willingness-to-pay, etc. And on one of the calls we ended up talking to someone who was so interested, they became a lead that will likely consume all the client’s capacity to deliver for the next year. So we probably won’t end up having to do the actual lead generation program. But what made it so successful was asking good questions during the planning process.
Here is the main question of our interview. What are your 5 proven strategies for increasing lead generation? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
1 . Understand your market’s needs, and look for them
The adage is: No one needs a drill, they need a hole. So make sure you understand what the underlying need, pain, problem or unmet goal is before you try to pitch anyone. There are many examples that people are familiar with, such as “You deserve a break today,” or “You’re in good hands with Allstate”. But one of ours that worked extremely well was when we were helping one of the earliest 3D printer manufacturers introduce the concept to the market. We focused on rapid prototyping in the car industry because it was a pain point we identified with a very high cost, and we ended up selling out the production run.
2 . Ask questions, be empathetic, and listen to the answers — whatever media you’re using
Too many marketers care more about their products than about the prospects and their needs. Even if the prospect is busy or nasty, they’re still human; and if they believe you really care, they’re more likely to buy from you. We’ve hired (and fired) hundreds of telemarketers and salespeople over the years. And if someone just smiles-and-dials, and doesn’t establish rapport and credibility, they soon gone. On the other hand, many of our good people have made long-term friends with our client’s prospects!
Even when you’re building a Web site, show empathy. Show that you understand the problem, don’t just brag about your solution.
3 . Make sure you’re actually reaching your audience
A lot of money is spent on programs that don’t actually put your message in front of prospects, despite what the platforms and vendors will tell you. Remember, “time is the enemy”, and waiting for something to happen that can’t is a bad idea. To wit, we had a client that spent $500K and six months on an email campaign from another vendor, and got four leads out of it, before they finally threw in the towel and called us. It turned out that almost all of his emails got blocked by the spam filters. We switched him to cold calling, and got him enough leads in the pilot program to last him the entire year.
Fifty years ago, Phillip Kotler explained that the two biggest problems in Marketing are access and positioning. Nothing has changed.
4 . Be flexible in selecting tactics
What works one day rarely works the next, so you have to watch results carefully — and be prepared to change tactics quickly. By the same token, some things actually do take time to gel. The key is to know which situation you’re really facing. To be clear, it’s rarely a judgment call. Rather, you need to know what metrics are indicators of potential success, and what ones are indicators of impending doom. And that usually depends on the nature of the Sell Cycle. For example, a no-show can indicate a loss of interest, but it can also mean that the prospect needs to get other people involved. Most KPIs will punish the latter. But if Marketing participates in the Funnel or Territory meetings, it can usually be fixed.
As for what I like today on the Marketing side, certainly cold calling still works. We augment that with SEO, direct mail, Social Media and fixing the client’s Web site content. On the Sales side, we train clients in questioning techniques, presentation techniques, and Funnel Management, as those are often weaknesses.
5 . There are no proven strategies for lead generation
The issue here is that it depends on how you define lead generation. If you define it as a tactic that you bolt onto a failing marketing program in order to save it, then start floating your resume. On the other hand, if you define it as your high-level go-to-market strategy that governs both your Marketing and Sales program, then you have a chance. That said, if you strive for uniqueness (which every business should do), then you’re paving new ground — and nothing is really “proven”; so every campaign has to re-invent the wheel.
What trends do you see emerging in this space that businesses should be paying attention to?
AI, of course.
But I think the question actually misses the key problem. That is, there is a trend that will continue, and businesses need to pay attention to it. Specifically, the industry will continue to develop tools that look like the greatest thing since sliced bread, but they don’t actually fix the problem for its users. In other words, everyone is looking for a way to grow sales and make more money. And that’s fine. But no one, I believe, is going to come out with a new solution that’s going to give anyone a meaningful competitive edge — at least not for long. This is because, assuming it even works, everything gets commoditized and deleveraged in an instant today. What businesses have to do is be skeptical of every new shiny object, and focus instead on the fundamentals.
If there are any trends that businesses should look out for, it’s probably de-globalization, renewed anti-trust enforcement, and maybe re-establishing progressivity in the tax code. In the absence of that, failure rates are going to continue to soar, and wealth will continue to concentrate, decimating the middle market. Unfortunately, all the incentives are for innovators to come up with new solutions, get a few customers, and exit — with the PE firms hoping for an occasional winner.
We are nearly done. You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I am a strong believer in the need for campaign finance reform. Reaganomics and the associate Shareholder model have destroyed the middle class; and at some point, people are going to come with shovels and pitchforks.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
My serious stuff is on YouTube (@LeadGenDotCom) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyljosephson/). My fun stuff is on TikTok (@LeadGenDotCom).
Thank you for the interview. We wish you only continued success!
