I’m still amazed at the number of folks who continue to either buy leads or subscribe to list building programmes instead of generating their own leads. It’s not like creating your own list is hard, or expensivie or time consuming. In fact, lead generation has probably never been easier, especially given the rise of social networking and the importance all those Web 2.0 sites now have in the eyes of Google.
Let’s be honest. You will never get the same level of response from second hand, worn out, tired leads and customers that you will get from your own list of folks who have specifically said they are interested in hearing from you. Whether they signed up to a capture page you created, or they subscribed to you on Twitter, or even if they just befriended you on Facebook, these people have already shown an interest in You.inc. You just can’t get that any other way.
If you want to waste money on buying leads then go right ahead. I guarantee you won’t get past first base with 99% of them. The reason? They don’t know you from Adam. They have no idea of who you are, what you do, and more importantly they have no reason to trust you.
When you build your own list, they get to see that you’re a real person. You get to build a relationship with them long before you try selling them anything. This is the crucial aspect that so many folks miss out when they start building their list.
They think that once they have the sign up that’s it. Job’s done. And now all that remains is to screw as much money of that person as possible. Wrong!
… the keys are identifying the most likely prospects and then educating and qualifying them before deploying more expensive sales resources. The education benefits the buyer; qualification benefits the seller. This gradual lead cultivation process can go on for months and involve several individuals in evaluating a solution.
Now that’s a pretty long winded explanation from Wikipedia but notice the ‘educating and qualifying’ part? Getting someone to sign up to your list is only the first step in building your list.You’ve got to put in the effort after that to keep them there if you want to see any return on your initial investment in getting them to sign up in the first place.
Bear in mind that not everyone on your list is going to buy from you. A lot of them may never buy from you. But, assuming you treat them right, assuming you make the effort to ‘educate’ them there’s a very good chance they may very well recommend you to their friends, just as you would recommend someone or something to your friends if you thought it would help them.
Let’s not pretend anymore that list building is hard. You don’t really need to go in for all the rubbish that’s being spouted by the so called gurus on all the latest lead generation techniques. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re interested in generating those leads as potential members of your MLM business or as potential customers for your product or service. The same rules apply.
