I really just don’t get it. How can so many businesses be missing the lead generation boat by such a long country mile? Billions of dollars in profits, flushed away! Just because of 7 innocent, yet deadly, tactical lead generation errors. Its nuts!

Now before I continue, let me just say that some of you who read this might find it upsetting. I’m going to reveal some controversial ideas here. And yes, some of them are likely to fly in the face of many of the things that you’ve probably read & heard about lead generation, and come to believe. But I urge you to keep an open mind. At the very least, weigh this article without prejudice. When you’re finished reading, I give you full permission to thumb your nose, and go back to doing lead generation the way you’ve always done it.

“The 7 Sins”. Sales & Marketing on Separate Floors. This, my friend, is the cardinal sin.

Marketing guys sitting in an ivory tower, pontificating about company image & branding, and coming up with a bunch of award winning creative mambo that amounts to nothing more than pompous chest beating.

And everyone waxes poetic about how good the company looks, and finds an excuse for justifying the money pit with the orders that some dialing for dollars sales guys brought in against the latest “marketing promotion”.

Nobody seems to notice that the marketing “campaign” is lame & useless, and that it’s the sales force that is driving sales against the “promotion”. And sales stay flat, because the promotion is really nothing more than another way of packaging a discount.

Meanwhile, in another part of the building, the sales force is struggling to meet their numbers, and spending 80% of their time generating leads by leaving voice messages, and battling to finesse their way by gatekeepers, and showing up in lobbies unannounced because they happened to be in the area. Why? Isn’t that 6 or 7 figure marketing campaign supposed to put them in front of pre-qualified prospects, with a genuine need for what their selling, so they can help them to solve problems, and close business?

FACT, a real marketing program can actually do this.