In defence of lead gen agencies

Barely a day goes by without an agency owner or business developer telling me about their less-than-pleasing experience outsourcing lead generation. I’d say for every person I speak to with good things to say about lead gen agencies, another ten say the complete opposite.

So, what’s going on?

Firstly, people tend to share negative experiences more than they do positive ones.

Secondly, even if a lead gen agency is doing a great job, I could imagine a scenario where their client is reluctant to tell the world about it. Who wants to give away their secret sauce to the competition, right?

And finally, there is my own confirmation bias to consider. If I keep hearing people say lead gen agencies suck, I’ll subconsciously listen out for and recall conversations that support this view.

But let’s put all that aside to make one thing clear. I don’t think all lead gen agencies suck.

Far from it.

Of course, there are some sharks and charlatans about. I’ve had the (mis)pleasure of seeing under the bonnet of campaigns run by such lead gen agencies and, let me tell you, they weren’t pretty. Thousands upon thousands of generic emails fired out to anyone with a pulse. It would have been less damaging to both the client’s wallet and reputation to have done nothing at all.

But I’ve also heard disparaging comments about lead gen agencies I really rate.

So, what’s REALLY going on?

Any lead gen agencies reading this will be best placed to confirm (or challenge) my hypothesis, but I think there are a couple of key factors that determine success:

1) The client’s readiness to do outbound.

2) How the client approaches the meetings booked by their lead gen partner.

On the first point, Mark Duval wrote a great article last year exploring what makes a client (marketing agencies in this context) outbound-ready. They include narrow positioning, proven results in the sectors being targeted and the capacity to follow up opportunities effectively.

When a lead gen agency sends thousands of generic emails, it might be because they don’t know any better. But it could also be because their client just wasn’t ready to do outbound in a more targeted and refined manner.

(As an aside, I’d argue a lead gen agency ‘doing the right thing’ wouldn’t even consider drafting an outbound email until the issues Mark raises have been fixed. But, of course, that doesn’t always happen. Either because the lead gen doesn’t have the expertise to fix these issues or because they decide to take on the client regardless.)

‘They weren’t qualified’

But even those lead gen agencies approaching outbound with more sophistication – resulting in a steady stream of meetings – can still find their client unhappy.

The client might tell me:

‘Yeah, they got us meetings with some decent brands, but they weren’t qualified.’

This leads us on to the second of my success factors; how the client manages the meetings set up by the lead gen partner.

In my view, a lead gen agency is simply there to open the door on behalf of their client. I say ‘simply’ but actually that task is extremely challenging; client-side marketers might receive 20 or 30 approaches a day (A DAY!) so getting a response to an outbound email is a minor miracle in itself.

But here’s the real crux.

Just because a prospect says they are happy to talk, it doesn’t mean they are in the market RIGHT NOW.

Yes, their interest has been piqued, otherwise, why would they have responded? But the likelihood that your lead gen agency has hit them up just as they were thinking about a change of approach, strategy or agency is very low.

You might immediately think this is a bad thing. Not necessarily. In fact, a prospect who is not in the market right now can actually be a more fruitful opportunity in the long run. But it requires an entirely different mindset and approach to the meeting your lovely lead gen partner has just booked for you.

From salesperson to changemaker

If you first accept that, in all likelihood, prospects targeted by your lead gen agency aren’t ready to buy right now, you will also accept the need to tackle the meeting differently.

Rather than whipping out the creds and talking about your agency for an hour – an approach that creates no value whatsoever for the prospect – you instead focus on building a case for change (remembering that change can be hard, scary and uncomfortable. It is much easier to do nothing, hence in sales your biggest competitor is the status quo).

That’s why a creds-style conversation so often ends with things going no further. Think about it. Why would a prospect consider changing based on a one-way conversation where you attempt to persuade them that your agency is ‘better’? Trust me, they’ve heard it all before.

This is where a lot of agencies need to up their sales game. People like to consider themselves ‘consultative’ salespeople but, in reality, I’m not so sure they are.
Consultative selling involves playing the role of trusted adviser; challenging assumptions, sharing insight, offering advice, and, ultimately, helping the prospect navigate change.

It relies on you already having a good idea of the problems faced by your prospect – and more importantly, the root causes of those problems – because you have seen them many times before (in The Challenger Sale, they call this hypothesis-based selling).

Consultative selling means you know as much – if not more – about your prospect’s world as they do. This means they learn something new about themselves, their business or their market during the sales process, thus beginning to build the case for change.

If they’re not learning, then they have no reason to continue talking to you. So they go dark. You chase them up for months on end. Then after a few attempts, you give up.

And who gets the blame for this? The lead gen agency of course. Because the prospect ‘wasn’t qualified’.

All paths lead back to positioning

If you haven’t guessed by now, consultative selling is most effective with narrow positioning; where working with similar clients, facing similar problems, leads to deep expertise.

Not only does this make the sales process easier – especially your ability to act as a trusted adviser in meetings – but your lead gen agency will also stand a far better chance of getting those meetings in the first place.

With generalist positioning, the opposite is often true. Your lead gen agency is forced to ‘bend the narrative’ to get you in front of prospects. Today, you are experts in banking, tomorrow e-commerce. It can be done. But it’s a tough gig for the lead gen agency.

And even if they get you a meeting, you probably lack the deep expertise to drive change.

Making the whole exercise a waste of everyone’s time.

All of which leads to my parting thought.

If the results you’re getting from your lead gen agency aren’t meeting expectations, it’s easy to pass the blame and push them to up their game.

But maybe they need you to up yours first.