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pkrone@productivestrategies.com.
We’re happy to give you our take on what you’re doing now or suggest other ways you might not have tried.
How do you fill the top of the funnel?
June 17, 2025
Phil Krone, President
There are many ways to generate leads—cold calling, networking, outsourcing, and more. Here are some examples from the field.
No other business development activity is more diverse than how salespeople get leads for the top of their sales funnel.
We have had clients who have never made a cold call, and we have had clients who get 100 percent of their leads from cold calling.
We have clients who spend a large amount of time networking, and some who never network, let alone spend time and money trade shows, webinars, conferences, and seminars.
Some firms rely exclusively on word of mouth and referrals; others don’t.
There are companies whose marketing results in so many leads that the salespeople do not have to prospect. And there are companies that rely only on their business developers finding their own opportunities.
Here are some case histories that might give you ideas of how to diversify your lead generation.
Big Ticket Item, Long Product life, Limited Market Size:
One of our clients has outsourced appointment-setting and lead generation to us for more than fifteen years. The client
manufactures capital equipment costing millions of dollars. But they don’t look to us for the quantity of leads we can identify. Instead, they want us to identify leads they would not have known about without our ability to efficiently and effectively survey the market they sell to.
For this client, finding even one new opportunity per month—or even quarter—for them to quote is extremely cost effective and valuable. By calling two hours a day for an entire year we
can survey this client’s entire target market. There are several objectives of this calling program.
For each call, we first want to learn how well the prospect’s current equipment is running. Do they expect to replace it in the near future and if so when?
Second, we want to remind prospects that even if they are using a competitor’s equipment they can still use the parts we manufacture for many applications.
Finally, we want to build brand recognition for our client to keep our client top of mind so that when a prospect’s procurement department has a need they will call us directly. They won’t have to wait until we call them as a part of our
annual market survey. We’re building a sustainable relationship for our client with prospects’ procurement professionals—the people who make purchases.
I recall one prospect telling our caller, “You must have ESP. I was just told this morning to start getting bids for new equipment.”
We didn’t need ESP because our process made us “clairvoyant.” We might have talked to a hundred people that week, but to the prospect it was perfect timing.
In summary, outbound calling to set sales appointments is most effective when the product or service is a big-ticket sale, and the target market is clearly identified. A good list also boosts our odds because we know we’re reaching companies and individuals who will almost always need our client’s services sooner or later. The life cycle for this equipment is 10-20 years so staying in touch annually is critical to success.
Selling to Professional Service Firms: Another client is a national leader in providing disability and other forms of insurance as executive benefits for highly compensated partners. In twenty
years, she has never made a cold call.
How is that possible? She is an active networker who has developed the skills needed to form business and personal relationships. One of those skills is knowing that successful—that is, productive—networking is understanding that before you can expect others to help you, you need to help them—or at least sincerely try to.
Another skill is making sure people you network with know and understand exactly what product or service you offer—and how your knowledge of the market creates value for your clients. This specific information makes it easy for those in your network to spot opportunities for you and to make referrals. It’s important, too, that you make the effort to get that same information from those
in your network. That makes It easier for you to help them.
A Manufacturer Calling on Architects: One of my customers for years was a manufacturer that sold hardware and other materials that became part of the ventilation system in commercial and industrial buildings. The president’s way of generating interest and business was to go on the road for three weeks at a time. He would call on architects and persuade them of the value of specifying his products into designs for new construction.
The dollar value of the primary product that was specified by the architect was moderately high but having the product specified over and over for years has created large payoffs. By offering to ship same day to job sites via UPS, the company had differentiated itself way before a current expectation of overnight service.. They also offered some accessory products that were high margin. Some of the products could be bought in a local hardware store at a lower price, but once the construction crews got used to making a phone call and receiving the goods on the job site the next day they paid higher prices for the convenience.
Have you recently considered how you might increase both the number and the quality of your leads—and, eventually, the volume or margin of your sales? The stories we’ve related here are a good source of ideas and might even spark new ways to run your business. Spend a few minutes with each case and brainstorm how the behavior might apply to what you do. Here are some additional thoughts
- Maybe you need to increase the number of referrals you are receiving
- Perhaps you need to know how to generate a greater return from your investments in trade shows, webinars, conferences and seminars
- It could be that you need to become a better networker, cold caller, or persuader.
We consult and train on all of these areas and would be happy to speak with you about how you might change the way you’re generating leads, perhaps by being more efficient or by testing some new approaches.
The answer is just about anywhere. But here are several sources we’ve seen work wonders.
Asking the questions that give you the confidence you need to win in sales.
This faith-based not-for-profit achieves 40 percent year-over-year growth for 17 years by applying well-known business principles, one in particular. Why can so few businesses even dream of such growth?
Are you selling business to business or business to government or both? There are similarities but also differences that need to be recognized to optimize your results.
Last year after a talk I gave at the Small Business Expo on Business to Business Selling (B2B) , a woman asked for my card because she wanted to meet to tell me about her business and learn more about mine. When we eventually got together she shared that her start-up company’s goal was to console consumers who had suffered the loss of a loved one directly, as she had. But my talk had inspired a new idea: assist funeral homes to improve their services by showing more empathy to their customers who were struggling as she was. I sensed that my talk gave her confidence that, despite the challenges, her business could succeed. What I didn’t realize was that this small assignment for a start-up would eventually have such a big impact on her business as well as an industry.
To date we have covered the Sales, Information, Tactical, and Marketing Plan Levels. Although the fifth level is the last to be discussed, it is often what sets a business in motion when it is founded. Today we will illustrate marketing to support a vision by discussing two very successful businesses.
As a reminder, the Five Levels of Marketing are (1) Sales, (2) Information/Data/Analytics, (3) Tactical or Campaign, (4) Marketing or Program, and (5) Vision/Strategic. We’ve explored each of the first three levels in separate columns in August, September, and October. They are available on our website's Productive Insights collection.
Using intelligence from prior levels leads to revenue-building sales campaigns on the ground in real time.
Tracking key types of data each month provides insights that can build a highly productive marketing plan.
The Five Levels -
Sales: Prospecting, qualifying, discovery, presentation, demonstration, proposal writing and closing; Information/Data/Analytics; Tactical or Campaign; Marketing or Program; Vision/Strategic