You don’t need more leads (you just need more sales)

If your sales aren’t high enough, the solution isn’t necessarily more leads.  If the sales problem is elsewhere, driving more leads will at best only exacerbate the problem, and at worst could cost you significantly more money without moving the sales needle one bit.

Leads are sexy, and easy to understand.  If I get more leads, I’ll probably close more sales.  That’s probably true, but it could be the lazy way to fix a problem elsewhere in your sales funnel.

If you want more sales, don’t start at the top of the funnel.  Start at the bottom, and work your way back up.  Why are deals at the negotiation stage failing to convert?  Why are some qualified opportunities not getting far enough down the purchase path?  Why are good leads – those with a need and budget – failing to become qualified opportunities?

The fastest way to increase sales is to increase conversion of those closest to becoming a sale.  Review every stage back up in the direction of newly-created leads.  If you find everything is working just fine and you actually do need new leads, then go get them.  But nine times out of ten we do this, we don’t get that far before building a long list of optimization opportunities that drive more sales, faster.