Source: b2c.com
It happens in nearly every business field, and the lead generation industry is no exception: Well-meaning colleagues end up giving you bad advice on the best approach for your B2B lead generation and appointment setting.

These mistaken suggestions are where ideas from other people, goes wrong. Sometimes, you just need to listen to an authority within the sales and lead generation industry rather than just your colleagues who have only dipped their toes in the waters of outsourced sales and lead management.

Here are five pieces of advice you need to stop listening to regarding outsourced sales support and lead generation tips:

Bad Tip #1: You Need Experts With In-Depth Product Knowledge

Whether you’re in software sales or any other specific B2B service industry, your lead generation personnel don’t have to be experts on your specific product. Your product experts should be saved for closing the sale and for long-term customer service – not for cold calling and initial appointment setting.

Rather, in the initial prospecting process, you need a sales team that’s better at establishing relationships and qualifying sales leads more than you need product experts.

Bad Tip #2: You Need A Face-To-Face Lead Generation Team

Knocking on doors to generate new leads is a practice of the past. In the modern age, you don’t need a team of face-to-face salespeople in order to make genuine connections with your prospects – after all, there’s a reason why outbound telemarketing is still a highly successful business model.

Instead, you should hire a lead generation team that pursues every new opportunity in your contact database. Whether you find a new contact at a tradeshow event or a networking lunch, your lead generation team should be following up with that contact in a timely manner.

Bad Tip #3: You Need In-House Lead Generation Specialists

A lot of businesses believe that if their B2B lead generation isn’t done by their own employees, then they can’t control the message sent to their prospects. These business leaders fear an outsourced sales team would not represent their brand well but most of the time that fear isn’t even credible.

In reality, reliable lead generation specialists act as an extension of your business and their appointment setting experts will be trained well to represent the brand image you want to communicate. Outsourcing your lead generation efforts also ensures that your leads are highly qualified and never dead end opportunities.

Bad Tip #4: You Need More Leads, No Matter What
Another common piece of advice from colleagues is that your company always needs more leads, regardless of quality or personnel bandwidth. However, this lead-heavy situation is far from the ideal for most businesses.

f you load too many leads into the top of your sales funnel and you don’t have the ability to follow up with those prospects, the contact information from those leads is likely to go bad – and prospects are likely to have moved on to a different vendor or supplier. As we’ve covered before, quality of leads always outweighs quality of leads, and you should have a sales team with the bandwidth to follow up and close the deal.

Bad Tip #5: You Need Only A Single Sales Channel

While certain marketing and sales channels might be more popular or easier to execute, no single channel is certain to reach your entire customer base. If you want to ensure you don’t miss out on any potential customers, you need to start capitalizing on more than one sales or marketing channel.

For example, you may need to purchase contact lists and start cold calling prospects, or maybe you need to start utilizing marketing automation software or you might need to hold more webinars or tradeshow events. No business is likely to have covered every single channel or mined every single opportunity – the key is to keep diversifying your opportunities to maximize your top-line growth.

There’s a lot of bad lead generation advice out there, so it’s time to start debunking the myths and cutting through the speculation. Start by tuning out these five bad lead generation tips and begin listening to advice that’s proven to produce results.

Contact:
David Schwartz
SOS Business Development
760.345.5069
Email