Business Development – How To Generate More Sales Leads

The life-blood of any business is the ability to generate a constant stream of sales leads.

Failing to do so will result in you experiencing the typical feast and famine revenue cycle. The important thing is to have a number of ways for generating sales leads for your business. If you’re reliant on one form of lead generation system then you’re over-exposed. Here are a number of lead generating strategies for you to consider for your business.

1. Your website.

   Without doubt, nowadays your website is the most critical tool in your marketing arsenal. If you don’t yet have one, it’s important that you plan to have one as soon as possible. If you do have a website, is it generating leads for you? If not, ask yourself why not? Your website is your sales tool that is operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is a structure and a method for getting your website to generate sales leads for you.

2. Google Places.

   This is a free tool from Google where you can register your business and map it’s location. You don’t even need to have a website in order to use Google places. When people are searching for a particular service on a local basis, Google maps will appear in the search results, and you want to have your business appear.

3. Social Media.

   There is a constant increase in the number of businesses moving to social media platforms including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is primarily for people in business. They have over 100 million registered users and 45% of the people on LinkedIn are the decision makers. Decide which platform is relevant for your business and make sure you have a strategy for generating sales leads when using any of the social media platforms.

4. Referrals.

   People do business with people they know and trust. With this being the case, it’s important to have a referral strategy for your business where you systematically ask for referrals from the people you do business with. They are best placed to tell other people about the value of your service.

5. Videos.

   Video marketing is relatively new for the purpose of generating sales leads and this is set to increase substantially over the coming year. Videos afford you the opportunity to present yourself using a lot more of the sensory modalities than other methods. A picture says a thousand words, so you can imagine what a video will do for your business.

6. Business Forums.

   These are places where people gather both physically or virtually on the internet. They provide a great opportunity for you to display your expertise by providing valuable content, answering questions and getting involved in discussions.

7. Speaking Events.

   They say the biggest fear so many people have is public speaking. However it affords you the opportunity to present yourself, your business and your expertise to a captive audience.

There are so many other methods for generating sales leads for your business and there are many opportunities for people that are putting a lot of effort into each of these methods. With any marketing method, persistence and measurement is the key. Make sure you are doing it right or it could have an adverse effect on your business.