In my previous article I gave you my top five methods for lead generation. Here are my next five, plus a bonus, making a top ten (or eleven) in total.

6. Print advertising – both classified and display advertising can be rewarding, but expensive. You need to carefully measure the effectiveness of your advertising and balance this against other, cheaper, ways to generate new business.

7. Leaflets – can be useful for local businesses, or as inserts within targeted publications. Inserts must be very finely targeted, otherwise we all know what happens. That sheaf of inserts goes straight in the bin without so much as a glance.

8. Direct sales – for organisations large enough to have their own salespeople, it’s very important that your qualification and closing skills are top-notch. Firstly you have to spend time with the right prospects – those who are prepared to spend money to solve a problem that you can fix. Then you need to convince them to spend that money, and spend it with you.

9. Referrals – probably the best source of sales leads you can ever have. As a minimum, get some case studies from your best customers, stating the problem(s) they had and how you helped them. Better still, get your customers to call people they know who may have similar problems, introducing your business as a potential solution.

10. Free advice – often it will pay you to give away free advice. Don’t give away the farm, just enough information to make people feel like you’ve given them something of value. Some of them will reciprocate your generosity by doing business with you in the future.

That’s my top ten. Here’s the bonus:

11. Joint ventures – particularly if you’re just starting out it can pay you to piggy-back on someone else’s success. This could mean another company recommending your services to their customers via a direct mail or email communication. Or how about you offering a combination of your own and someone else’s complementary products or services? Your prospective customers will never have heard of you, but maybe your partner will have a higher profile.

I’ll cover each of these (including the first five) in more detail in my next few articles.