Small business lead generation should not be hard to figure out, when you know that you have neither customers nor money.
Most people would say the answer is easy because without either customers or money you can’t do any small business lead generation. What’s so hard to figure out about that?
Let’s not be glib about it.
Without money or customers it’s hard to generate business leads that could convert to cash, true enough. It’s hard but not impossible. If you’re willing to sweat some time and labor for it, your small business lead generation effort will pay off.
Here is how you can start to produce some initial startup revenue for your home-based micro-business venture to get you out of unemployment or supplement your existing situation. Get some cash coming in this way and it will be easier for you to convince someone to fund your additional efforts at marketing your offers to generate even more revenue and grow that business you want. Success chases after more success.
So what’s the catch?
The catch is that you actually do need not only to have something hot to offer, but you also need to know how to press specific people’s hot buttons about it.
You don’t necessarily need money to do this. You just need 2 ears, 1 mouth and plenty of brains.
Providentially, most of us come equipped with at least this much. So, let’s see how to put it all to work together to get your no-money small business lead generation program going.
Small Business Lead Generation That Rains Pennies From Heaven
First, we start with every small business owner’s favorite word: FREE. Did you like that? So do others. Keep that in mind because, as you move toward your free social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and others to execute your lead generation campaign, the word free will play an important role in getting you business.
Next comes the word referral. Yes, I know that I premised our situation as you starting with no customers. But you got friends and family, don’t you? Can they vouch for what you offer others? If so, ask them to do so, and then go and deliver what they told their friends and relatives that you can de facto do. Do it wholly in exchange for a testimonial.
You’re going to need several of these for your small business lead generation campaign to gain momentum.
The third step is the trickiest. It’s called listening with a purpose.
This is where your first lead generation effort will differ significantly from the typical small business lead generation campaign, because you’re not going to launch an activity through social media to promote yourself explicitly. Instead you’re going to draw attention to yourself by what you’re asking others in your social networks to speak to you about.
You’re going to ask for feedback not for purchases. In short, you’re going to start conversations.
Yes, you’re going to speak with strangers about what THEY love and want BEST. And this is what free social media is ideal for.
Knowing beforehand 1) what product or service you believe is hot in the eyes of a specific kind of person, 2) which hot buttons you can press to get such an individual to sit up and take notice of you, and lastly 3) that you already have a handful of people who can testify to the value that you’ve delivered to them before, is going to take you places. But first you listen…you ASK, then you LISTEN.
And this is the meat and potatoes of the first stage of your no-money small business lead generation campaign. Formally, it’s called marketing research. But pay those fancy names no mind. You’re going for finding the right kind of people’s interests that you’d be happy to speak with them further about.
What’s more, you’re going to recruit friends and relatives who are involved in Facebook or Twitter or the social media network of your preference where you’re most likely to find those ideal people to speak with and you’re going to ask them to inquire to their own network the same provocative kind of questions that you’re asking strangers to find out if their networks know people interested also in speaking about the topics with you.
Gather all this feedback and notice what seems to be a recurring pain point or issue and whether you know how to address it. When you figure out a solution, write a series of posts and publish them in your Facebook business page (free) or a WordPress.com blog (free). The goal is to follow up with these folks you’re engaging in conversation to point them to your ideas on how to address their interest. And ask them for their feedback on your proposed solutions.
You’re still not selling a thing! You’re finding out what buttons to press and developing rapport and TRUST later to sell something to them.
How To Produce Real Campaign Results
Now here comes the most crucial insight to remember. Here’s how you make the money.
Behind the scenes, you must associate every single request for information that you make (and you should have a list of 5 to 10 red hot topics that your ideal client would find irresistible to talk with you about) to a distinct “Thank You For Speaking With Me” free information offer that matches what your ideal client finds valuable.
This way when someone replies to your inquiries, you may track what’s driving campaign behavior best. Let’s work out an example to make it all clear for you.
You have a couple of friends and one relative who live in gated communities and know people who match your ideal client profile. The hot button for your ideal client is that they keep late hours and are too busy with their work life to bother being tidy. But their place is such an embarrassment whenever they try to bring a date over to visit, that they seldom have any visitors.
And this matters to them BIG time. Your task, therefore, is to craft 5 questions that you would ask of this ideal individual to make him take notice of you and want to speak with you about.
Let’s say that one of those questions might sound like this: “Are you so embarrassed of how dirty your place looks that you can’t take a date there to visit with you?” You will then rephrase it before putting it in the social network to sound more like this: “I’m really in need of help and would appreciate your sincere input. Do you know any single men who are so embarrassed of how dirty their place looks that they can’t even take their dates there to visit with them?“
That’s all for step one. Then, start looking through the network for those very people. On the side, have ready some pictures. When you begin having men contact you to discuss the topic, inquire about their situation and then say “Here’s a couple of places I cleaned up for some single men just like you and how I left them right after. They could have eaten off the floor with their date.” Then, send the pictures or a video showing before and after conditions from your referrals. It won’t matter if they’re friends or family to begin with.
Are you seeing where this is going? You now got a small business lead generation campaign going for free and without existing customers!
When someone replies to you with an answer that might sound like “Wow. I have a friend…” or “…I have a brother” or “…I know somebody who matches the kind of person that you’re looking for,” answer with “Can you put me in touch with him if he lives in the area? I have a free ______ that I’d love to share with him.
What could that <blank> be?
It could be a short case study about a job you’re especially proud of having done well or a checklist of things to make sure get done to turn a rat’s nest into a cozy lover’s den or a brief survey to qualify his interest in getting certain things cleaned up above others. End by saying, “If he were willing to answer a couple of questions for me about what someone like him would find most important to get done if somebody came to clean up his place, I’d be most grateful.” Always be polite. Always give thanks.
Then, when you’re put in touch with this individual, make sure to track which question that you posted in your social networks or asked directly for him were most valuable. Determine which question is generating the most interest and apply yourself to exploit this information to get more responses based on your knowledge of this particular need that you keep hearing about.
Yes, it’s quite a bit of work to execute a small business lead generation campaign using mainly free tools and other people’s hand-overs. But beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, you aren’t really begging and this lead gen technique can actually get you sufficient business to make your next campaign easier to execute.
So, go give it a try. If you’re already on Facebook or Instagram, then you’re never so small or so tight on money today that you just couldn’t do a successful small business lead generation campaign that could end up paying off in real cash for you quite quickly, so long as you just get started already.