Revenue is flat. Your pipeline is molasses. It’s clear you have to do something to get leads flowing again. 

You call an all-hands meeting and revisit the multi-page lead generation plan you crafted at the end of last year but haven’t looked at in months. 

Your intentions were pure back then in the optimistic sheen of the blank slate of a new year. But the plan didn’t manifest action. Things were planned but not done. Again.

You have your reasons. 

In my experience, the most common reason a lead generation plan doesn’t get executed is it doesn’t recognize and leverage the strengths of the individuals executing. By “strengths,” I don’t mean abilities. I mean motivation.

Performance = Motivation x Ability

In the organizational behavioral model implied in this formula, ability is the answer to the question, “Can you do this?” 

Motivation is the answer to the question, “Will you do this?”

If your sub-par lead gen performance is the result of a plan that you can do but did not do, then can we agree that the best plan is one that you will actually execute?

Let’s find out what that plan is for you. 

Finding Your Strengths

Here’s a thought experiment I have put to hundreds of people. 

Imagine three lead gen “tools” on the table in front of you. You can use only one tool to drive all the leads required to achieve your growth goals. Which one do you choose? (Note, there’s no wrong answer. You’re balancing what you think will work with what you know you will do.)

  1. Speaking and/or writing
  2. Networking at events and/or online
  3. Unsolicited outreach

Now that you’ve selected your tool, go ahead and add a second to compliment the first. 

Now you’ve listed these three tools in order of personal priority. There are others not on the list—like paid media, sponsorships, etc.—that are just as valid but not as revealing as these three because they’re not as motivationally dependent. 

Look at your prioritized list and then look at your lead generation plan. What are the activities that got done and what were left undone? 

Do you see any correlations?

Matching Tools to Motivations

I use the Lead Gen Tools thought experiment to better understand what our clients will and will not do to generate leads. I’ve reviewed and even helped to author too many plans that didn’t get executed (some of which were my own) until I decided to quit trying to change people and start leveraging their natural strengths.

Let’s place your choices in the context of your motivational make-up. 

The Needs Theory of Motivation

David McClelland’s Needs Theory of Motivation posits that people are primarily motivated by three needs:

  1. The need for Power
  2. The need for Affinity
  3. The need for Achievement

These three needs correlate roughly to the three tools:

  1. High power-need people are drawn to the podium and the pen
  2. High affinity-need people are natural networkers
  3. High achievement-need people have the appetite for direct solicitation 

There are many different ways to generate leads. Lacking a better model, many people draw up “plans” to basically do everything: publish across all social platforms, blog, podcast, speak at events, write books, unsolicited email, LinkedIn spam, Facebook ads, active referral campaign, event sponsorships, and on and on. This is the lead gen plan of a large organization. Let’s get real. You’re not going to do all this.

Double Down on Dessert

Plan to do the activities you know you will do. Double down on the first tool you picked up. Maybe consider some activities represented by the second tool. Then delegate, outsource or delete everything else. 

Yes, I’m saying skip the lead gen veggies and start with dessert. 

I love speaking and writing. It’s my peach cobbler.

I have a strong dislike for networking. It’s my broccoli. 

I’m okay with a little bit of properly-executed unsolicited outreach. Let’s call it my red meat.

These are nothing more than personal preferences. (And grossly misrepresentative of what I actually eat.) 

Asking me to network at events is like asking me to eat my broccoli. Speaking at events however is my peach cobbler. 

The best plan is one that gets executed. Skip the veggies and eat lots of lead gen dessert instead.