B2B Lead Generation - Have You Built the Foundation?

I love the spring. Flowers bloom. The sun warms the Earth.

My alma mater, The University of Notre Dame, starts spring football. The Yankees finish the grapefruit league and head to the Bronx. March Madness reaches its climax.

I’m always intrigued by sports and the lessons B2B marketing and sales can learn from sports. Let’s explore those lessons.

Athletes work very, very hard to plan and get ready for the season. They work themselves into great shape and study their playbooks. They run sprints and lift weights.

B2B marketers tend to blast out campaigns, host webinars and create content, but are they preparing like athletes? Have they spent the time lifting weights and studying the playbook?

For instance, every B2B marketing worth its sales has written answers to these questions:

1. Where are your buyer personas? (Detailed profiles of the people who buy your products)
2. Where is your agreed definition of a lead? (Sales and marketing agree)
3. Where have you documented the customer buying process? (What are the steps they go through?)
4. Where is your content calendar? (Are you thinking like a publisher?)

Here’s the marketing take-away: Think like an athlete and prepare.

If you can’t answer those questions and show me where you documented them, hit the showers! We’re cutting you from the team.

What do you think? Is my sports analogy apt or am I full of crap? Love your comments.

By the way, this blog is now updated 7 days a week and multiple times a day, so we hope you visit often to see what’s new.

Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple” Check out the online show every Friday at 11am ET, “Laugh and Learn with the Fearless Competitor.” Find New Customers is one of few lead generation companies in New York. Follow Jeff on Twitter or download the free white paper on B2B lead generation.

Find New Customers helps companies like yours(with 150 to 5,000 employees and complex products) implement lead generation programs to improve the way you find and acquire high quality sales leads using best practices in onlinelead generation. Quality sales leads matter. In fact, a recent study found that sales teams with fewer, high quality sales leadsclosed more than sales teams with more leads of dubious quality.

If you wish to do sales lead generation online, contact the B2B lead generation experts at Find New Customers. Use the form below to send me a personal note or Leave a Reply to post a permanent comment on this article.