Where Do I Find Potential Customers? Lead Generation Techniques You Need to Know!
I recently wrote a post called, Sales & Our Time at Y-Combinator. Since then I’ve received questions about where we found our first batch of leads and I thought, what better way to answer that question than with a blog post.
According to the Investopedia definition, a sales lead is a ‘prospective consumer of a product or service, created when an individual or business shows interest and provides contact information. Businesses gain access to sales leads through advertising, trade shows, direct mailings and other marketing efforts.’ [1]
Leads are potential customers. Leads are people; and for new companies, finding these people can be tricky — namely since your product is new and it’s likely you’re still working on product-market fit, and by default, still defining your target market. Regardless of how new a company may be, there is an often overlooked route to finding potential, high-quality leads. That route is industry organizations. Within every industry are various trade organizations that are eager to find new members just like you!
Lead Gen Idea 1: Find the largest, most respected organizations that hold industry conferences every year. Once you find them, ensure that if you become a member you will have access to their member database complete with names, titles, email addresses, and phone numbers. Once you’ve confirmed this will be accessible, it’s time to sign up! Additionally, if you’re a startup and one or more of your employees is working towards a degree, it can save you a lot of money to sign up as a student. If you sign up for 4 or 5 industry organizations you’ll likely end up with a minimum of 5,000 new leads in your given industry.
Lead Gen Idea 2: Within each industry there are likely a group of thought leaders, or better yet, board members of each industry organization. Given that the board will have few members (under 10) it is critical that you reach out to this group, and that your message to them is simply that you are asking for help, not just asking to buy your product. These board members are likely the thought leaders in their respective industries and if they won’t buy from you they can certainly help guide your product and introduce you to their network who you will be able to help.
Lead Gen Idea 3: I personally receive emails from lead generation companies on a weekly basis. In an effort to grow their business they are happy to provide you with a list of ‘x’ number of free contacts. This magic promotional number of free contacts can be negotiated, so try to get as many as you can. Remember, you don’t get what you don’t ask for! So go big. Then, if those leads you’ve just been given, that you’ve entered into a well-crafted campaign, yield real opportunities you may want to go back to that lead gen company and give them a real shot at earning your business, by paying for a batch of leads. Zoominfo did that for me over two years ago, and I’m still a happy, paying customer.
When you’re first starting out, trying to grow your company, build the best product or service, fundraise, and remember to eat and sleep, things can be hectic, and often get overcomplicated pretty quickly. Go back to the basics. Make networking your new best friend. If you simply follow the 3 steps outlined above you should have all the leads you need to start growing your business in no time! Seriously. We followed the steps above and quickly had 20 meetings scheduled per person per week for months out. If you’re serious about growth you need to go all-in.
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