Every business needs a healthy sales pipeline that turns leads into paying customers. Without that, you’ll struggle to secure new clients and grow as a business. So far, so sensible. But how do you generate those leads if you’re not a sales professional and you don’t have an in-house sales team? What can you do to build a robust pipeline of potential customers?

These five tips will help you generate leads like a pro.

1. Nurture your current clients. Your existing client base is fruitful ground for leads, providing lots of opportunities to up-sell or cross-sell. So be sure to keep in touch with your current customers and understand their needs. Keep those lines of communication open and work to build rapport.

2. Reach out to your contacts. Don’t be shy about asking your contacts to refer your business to others in their network. You can be quite direct here. Say you have ‘capacity to take on new clients/projects’ and ask who they could introduce you to…

3. Be visible in your business community. We’re talking about obvious things like networking and picking up the phone for those all-important sales calls. But also, just being an active, reciprocal member of your business community – for example, by recommending your clients’ and contacts’ businesses to others in your network. Basically, engage in conversations at every chance you get, and lift up other business owners whenever you can.

4. Assess how well your marketing campaigns are working. Be honest here, how closely do you examine the efficacy of your current marketing efforts? This is vital because, when you know what works and what doesn’t, you can do more of the activities that bring in new business, and less of the activities that don’t!

5. And finally, look after your prospects and ‘close the deal’. Look carefully at each of the steps in the customer’s buying journey, as they progress from lead to paying customer. What can you do to make that journey smoother, expediate the sales process and, ultimately, seal the deal?

Maybe the thought of picking up the phone and making sales calls fills you with dread. Or maybe you just don’t have time for all of the above steps. That’s where we come in. At OCTOPUS, we’ll work with you to attract new opportunities, build more connections, and increase your visibility in your community. Let us boost your pipeline.

(Image by drobotdean on Freepik)