Coffee's for Closers

22Lead Generation

‘Things do not happen. Things are made to happen’.

—John F. Kennedy

Some companies you work for will provide you with a fantastic database that has loads of qualified leads ready to receive your sales call. Other companies won't have anything, and in sales it is best to expect the unexpected.

The first thing to start is to get an understanding of the company's target market. These are some questions you should be asking your boss:

• Which industries are their typical clients with whom they have been successful?
• Have they got a database of old and inactive clients that you could start canvassing?
• Have they got a database of prospects that the previous salespeople have not converted for whatever reason?
• Have they got a database of every client they have ever done work with, which may not have been called of late to try and generate new business or cross‐sell or upsell?

Once you have got your answers for these questions, try some of the following proven ways of generating new leads.

Referrals – ask every client who could they recommend that could benefit from your products/services. Ask your boss if you are allowed to offer them a bottle of wine or a percentage of their next invoice in return. Later in this book, I will share some great strategies of exactly how to ask for referrals.

I remember, I had just finished delivering training at Jurys Inn's hotels. They are a group of 38 independent hotels across the UK and Ireland. At the end of the training, the ...