Lead Generation Lessons I’ve Learned over the Years…
Hi Loves!
Today we are getting down to business and discussing lead generation. I chose this topic because of the responses of the IG poll I put out, asking what you would like support in and Lead Generation was a leading topic; not just for new founders but for entrepreneurs who have been in business for years, making me realize how important this is at all stages of business.
And to be quite honest, it’s something I’ve struggled with, and haven’t focused enough on, since starting my first business back in 2020. I’ve read so many books and listened to so many podcasts, and have even taken a decent amount of courses, and find that Lead Generation is not emphasized enough. In my experience, I’ve been so focused on making the sale, that I never stopped to think about who I was selling to, and how I was finding those people to sell to.
Looking back, I was skipping a step, going from start to sale, when I should’ve been going from start to introduction/awareness to sale, missing a crucial piece of the funnel which ultimately led to less sales in the long run.
So today I’m sharing what I’ve learned, and how I’m doing things differently this time around with my new business, The Guide Next Door, a mentorship business that helps women build their dream lives and create time, location and financial freedom through entrepreneurship.
To start, I’m going to share what I was (and wasn’t) doing in my first business, Terrae Collective. Terrae is a product based business that started out in the pandemic and consisted of naturally dyed silk face masks that were breathable and better for your skin. It has since evolved into a meditation accessories brand that offers candles and silk eye masks to help enhance your meditation practice.
Reflecting on it now, I think my background in apparel production gave me a huge head start, otherwise, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. I knew how to develop a beautiful product, but that’s about it. I also knew that I wanted to start my own brand and saw a need in the market for masks that were made out of soft, breathable, comfortable materials that didn’t make your face break out. So that’s where I started.
I designed a mask that was beautiful, comfortable and easy to wear all day, and didn’t make your face sweat or break out. I built a website on Squarespace where I sold to friends and family, and I somehow got onto Faire pretty quickly, which is where most of my sales came through the first year. This was really beneficial because the Faire platform did all of the lead generation for me. I’m sure if I had my own lead gen strategy, I could’ve been much more successful, but again, I had no idea when it came to marketing, and had absolutely no strategy. I was just sewing and dying masks and got “professional” enough to design retail packaging for these new wholesale accounts I was acquiring.
In 2021 pop up markets started back up again and I attended as many as I could, which did lead to sales, but I had no strategy in place for capturing leads, so those sales ended there, with one time customers. As the year went on, my booth went from a small table to a tent, where I learned how to merchandise and create a brand story as I also began to introduce new products.
Eventually, I got smart on how to stay connected with my new customers and began building my social and email list. But as you can see, the product was always my core focus, because that’s what I was familiar with.
So let’s recap. Here’s what I was doing:
STARTING - This honestly is key. Just fucking start. You don’t need to have all the answers, you will learn and grow as you go.
SELLING - I had created a product that I loved, that I used myself, and that I believed in. I offered it to people with confidence and could speak to the benefits of it. I knew this product solved a painful problem in the market and had proved product-market fit.
ADAPTING - I was learning as I went and improving, adding, and pivoting according to lessons along the way. I kept an open mind and listened to feedback from my customers.
I will say that this was a good start. But could’ve been way smarter and more successful. Here are things I wasn’t doing that definitely held me back:
FOCUSING ON COMMUNITY/LEADS - I did not connect with my customers or collect e-mail addresses from the start. Starting over, I would start building an e-mail list IMMEDIATELY. Not only to generate more sales, but to nurture an audience and build a true community of people who believe in the brand mission and vision. Start building loyalty.
MARKETING - I was not doing everything I could to grow my Instagram following or to create buzz around the brand. I could have created more assets to share at the pop ups to help people connect with the brand and keep them coming back.
NO STRATEGY - I literally had no strategy at all. I was just winging it. Which, on one hand, is better than doing nothing, but definitely shouldn’t have taken 2 years to start planning a strategy. And if I’m being honest, I didn’t even implement a funnel until I started the Guide Next Door. Without strategy, all that work I was doing was like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck. I was running around in circles instead of down a planned path.
So here’s what I’m doing differently with The Guide Next Door. I’m focusing on:
BUILDING COMMUNITY & THE KNOW-LIKE-TRUST FACTOR:
It’s not enough to build something and expect people to come. This is not Angels in the Outfield, nope wrong movie, Field of Dreams. Although I do love Kevin Costner.
Yes, if you build it, they will come….but only after you shout it from the rooftops over and over and over and over and over again…. Times 11x. Studies show that in 2024 new leads need around 11 touchpoints with your offer before buying. This is up from about 7 touchpoints pre-pandemic. So what that means is it’s becoming even harder to acquire new customers.
Customers are getting more strategic with how they spend their money, especially this year being an election year, people are holding on to their cash with the uncertainty of what’s happening globally and right here in the US. But that doesn’t mean they are not spending, they just need more information. And, more connection. Especially the younger generations of buyers. Gen Z and Millennials want to know who/what they are supporting with their dollars. Which is why the first key component of lead gen is creating community. Engaging with your customers and genuinely getting to know them, and letting them get to know you. Gone are the days of faceless marketing - people want to know who they are buying from. They want to know, like and trust you, and we establish this through creating community.
So how do we do this?
Be Authentic - Getting Them to Know You
Sharing your story, your why, your vision
Don’t be afraid to be polarizing. You want to attract the people who are for you. If you speak to everyone, you reach no one.
Repetition
Don’t be afraid to put the same messages out there. This will help you create consistency in your messaging and content, and will help people remember you, what you do and what you stand for.
Become known for something.
For me, I want to become known for Building Better. Building a better life for me and my family, showing others how to do the same. To not settle and to go for your dreams.
Be real, be you
Don’t strive for perfection, strive for authenticity. There is only one you, and you want to create a genuine connection with your audience/community
Let people get to know you, as much as you are comfortable with.
Be Engaging - Getting Them to Like You
Get to know your audience as much as you’re letting them get to know you!
Become truly interested in who they are, what they believe in and what they are looking for. Then, you can truly serve them!
Create polls, ask questions and start conversations.
IG, email (convertkit), host/attend events
People love to chat and share their opinions!
Do research, offer free value for their time
Offer free niche research lead magnet
Talk to your customer
Face to camera reels, podcasts, events
Encourage them to have conversations through DMs, emails, etc.
Be Valuable - Getting Them to Trust You
Take their feedback and act on it! Prove to them that their opinions matter, that you are there for them.
Build trust through action, show them that you hear them and value their feedback, desires and truly want to help them
This will create loyal customers/audience/fans
Show up consistently
Set up a schedule and commit to it
Continue to show up for them
Remember you are doing it for your customer
You are doing this because you love it, but also because you are serving your community and solving a problem
Once you’ve built community and established a know, like and trust factor with your audience, our next component in lead generation is cultivating authority…
CULTIVATING AUTHORITY THROUGH FREE VALUE
In order to cultivate authority, we need to prove that we know what we’re talking about and that we can help our community solve their pain points. We do this through offering free value in the form of social posts, blogs, podcasts and lead magnets.
Now, you want to make sure that the value you offer is something that your audience is asking for. You don’t want to spend time creating something that no one is going to raise their hand and sign up for. So make sure that what you’re creating is something that you know your audience wants; ie taking their feedback/problem and creating a free, quick win for them.
This post is one way I cultivate authority with my community and provide free value. Last week I reached out to my community on instagram and asked them what they are struggling with - I put out a poll with the options Mindset, Goal Setting/Achievement, Lead/Sales Gen and Niche. The most voted for was Lead/Sales Gen - so here we are now, talking about that. My intention here is to give the people who wanted support in Lead/Sales Gen a quick win - offering them valuable advice that they can immediately go and take action on, hopefully giving them a quick win and solving their issue, or at least part of it. This helps build trust and cultivate authority, because A) I listened to them and created something to help support them, B) hopefully the advice/message in this post does actually solve a problem and give them a quick win, proving that I know my shit and can actually help them.
By creating this authority and gaining their trust, they are more likely to come back and read more posts, and try other freebies I offer, hopefully signing up for my mailing list to receive one of my free downloads. This is leading them down what’s called a funnel. Funnels are incredibly important, and you may have different funnels for lead gen, sales, marketing. My business is brand new so I’ve created a funnel focused on lead gen and marketing. Sort of combining all of them together. So if you don’t have a funnel, haven’t heard of what a funnel is, let’s get into it -
IMPLEMENTING A STRATEGIC LEAD GENERATION FUNNEL
A Funnel is a marketing strategy that helps guide customers from Point A to Point B. For our conversation, Point A is going to be “Brand Awareness” and Point B is going to be “Loyal Customer”.
As I explained before, I had no idea what a funnel was when I started Terrae. I just went out into the world with my product and hoped people would stop by my booth and buy it. What I didn’t realize was that vending at pop up markets was actually a way to get people into my top of funnel. And because I didn’t know this, I didn’t follow the strategic steps to guide them down to the bottom of funnel, where I could have turned them into loyal customers.
If this sounds like you - today is the last day you go without a funnel.
The funnel we’re going to build consists of 3 parts - top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel.
The top of funnel is all about brand awareness - this is where Building Community comes into play. This is where you generate that know, like and trust factor we were talking about earlier.
When people enter your top of funnel, you want them to get to know you. This is where people first see your brand, learn what your about, and decide if they like you. Maybe here you get a follow on instagram, a comment or a share. Some people who enter the funnel here may decide that you’re not for them, and they’ll fall out of the funnel. The others, who continue to engage and start to trust you, move down the funnel.
To get people from the top of funnel to the middle of funnel, you’re going to provide that free value we talked about. At this point, they like you and trust you enough that they want to learn more. Maybe they sign up for your lead magnet and provide you with their name and email address. Once they do this, they’ve entered your middle of funnel. They’ve raised their hand and are saying that they want to learn more from you, and they want to see what you have to offer. This is where you cultivate authority, offering them value and quick wins so they know what you can provide them.
And again, it’s a funnel, envision as you go down the funnel, it gets narrower, so there will be people who get your freebie and then unsubscribe and drop out. Don’t worry about that. You want to nurture the community that stays on your list, and you want to continue providing them value through your email newsletter and other offers to continue guiding them down the funnel. This is where you can share all of your content that you are creating for them - any podcast episodes you release, and blog posts, or any new freebies you wish to share. As you nurture, you want to remember to give, give, give, then ask. Always provide more free value than you do asking for a sale. Think of email lists you are subscribed to - isn’t it annoying when all they do is sell? I used to work for a brand that would send out daily marketing emails and it was all about selling the product, I ended up unsubscribing as an employee!
To nurture, you want to keep people on your list so you have someone to nurture, someone to serve. And then, once they’ve gotten to know you enough and see you as an authority in your niche, you’re ready to move them from the middle of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel.
The bottom of funnel is where you take those leads you’ve been nurturing, transforming from cold, to warm, to hot, and transition them to happy, loyal, paying customer. You do this by offering your product or service.
You may be thinking, but Chels, how do I know when they’re ready?
Data. Keep an eye on your KPIs like email open rates and click thru rates. Keep an eye on your subscribe/unsubscribe rates. These data points will give you an idea on how engaged your audience is. If you see that you have high open and click thru rates, chances are your audience is ready for more from you. Alternatively if your unsubscribe rates are high, you may be missing the mark.
Test! Put your offer out there. See how your audience responds. Don’t be afraid to sell. Remember that selling is service when you’ve crafted an offer intended to help your customer.
Learn. Continue taking feedback from your community, whether it’s in the form of data, polls, sales, conversations, and continue to grow and pivot as needed.
The last thing I want to share about funnels is that you will continuously be bringing people in and guiding them through, so it’s important to be consistent and continue implementing all steps of the funnel. If you build community, cultivate authority and provide value, then you will find success!!
If you’d like more support in funnel creation, I’ve created a mini course that I WISH I had when starting my business and that I now follow within the Guide Next Door that has helped me grow my list and generate leads on day one of implementing the strategy. I’m sharing my exact framework with you, including what my actual funnel consists of, all for just $33! This Mini Course is all you need to build an engaging Lead Generation Sales Funnel in less than an hour!
The course consists of a workbook and video lesson to guide you step-by-step through the process of building out your own funnel, complete with a clear, consistent content strategy, lead magnet & opt-in plan and the confidence to take action and gain leads!
If you’re interested in the mini course, sign up for it here! Would love for you to check it out!
I’d love to know if you found this post valuable, and if you’ve taken any positive action from it to help move the needle in your business! Let me know by sending me an email!
You’ve got this! Keep going, and build that community!!
xxChelsea
