How To Build A Leads List for A Consulting Firm (or for Enterprise Sales)

Posted on by Steve Ainslie

When I was a little kid and still believed in Santa Claus, I would prepare my Christmas list months in advance.

I followed a simple, proven method for building my list.

  1. Write down anything I wanted from TV commercials like Rockem Sockem Robots, Slinky, and a Big Wheel.
  2. Add stuff my friends owned like Color TVs, Parcheesi and Atari.
  3. And finally, go page by page through the entire Sears Christmas Catalog listing every single item I wanted.
The FIghting Furies. Possibly the coolest action figures ever.

With a few days of concentrated effort, I’d each have a comprehensive list that I’d give to my parents to mail out to Santa.

Although I didn’t got everything we wanted, it paid off.

I got the K-Tel Mini Skis (a disappointment), the Fighting Furies Pirate Action Figures (best toy ever), and enough toy guns to start a small army.

Christmas was never the same once I learned Santa wasn’t real, but it didn’t stop me from building lists.

How To Build A Leads List from Scratch

In  How to Make Sales with No Leads, No Marketing and No Track Record, I wrote about how to sell when you’re starting from scratch.

Since I’m doing this for my own consulting business right now, I am going to detail my process for building my lead list.

This will help sales people, managers and teams who don’t have inbound leads or who are doing their own prospecting.

(If you’ve got plenty of high quality inbound leads, you’re fortunate and I’m jealous – ignore this article and go close deals.  For everyone else, read on.)

Categorizing Leads

Keeping things simple, I’m categorizing leads this way:

  • Unspecified – Any contact that I am not actively working. Contact is primarily  via LinkedIn updates, blog posts and newsletters. Goal –  make them aware of what ISD can do for them and stay “top of mind” in case they come across any sales consulting projects.
  • Suspect – A potential client that I am currently chasing to have an introductory conversation.  Contact is via email and phone. Goal- have an initial conversation.
  • Prospect –  A Suspect who I have spoken to and identified a potential opportunity. Goal- identify potential opps.
  • Hot Prospect– A qualified Prospect with a qualified opportunity. Goal- create a qualified opp. 

I am a solo consultant. I will not be doing “mass” prospecting since I only work with a handful of consulting clients each each year. I’ve used a similar  approach when working for small startups selling higher priced services and at larger companies selling to Enterprise customers.

(This approach won’t be as effective for inside sales teams that are doing high volume prospecting for a lower cost product or SAAS. That’s covered here.)

My Tools

  • I’m using Copper as my CRM.
  • I’m using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find contacts.
  • I have a spreadsheet of Tech companies in Florida.

My Current Contacts Are Mostly Unspecified

I’m starting with the following people in my CRM.

  1. Current mailchimp subscribers to my newsletter (~ 500)
  2. People who have unsubscribed from my newsletter (~ 50)
  3. People who I removed from my newsletter list because they hadn’t read it (~ 450)

Most of my contacts are people I’ve worked with over the past 20 years. They include former co-workers, vendors, clients, competitors, family and friends.

Some of these contacts are Suspects. Most of them will be Unspecified unless something triggers a move to Suspect.

Building My List Of Suspects

I am targeting technology companies that are located in South Florida in three regions: Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. There are the the 3 metro areas within reasonable driving distance for me.

In Sales Navigator, I created a search with the following parameters:

Location: Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach

Industry: Computer Software, Computer Hardware, Computer Networking, Information Technology

Title: CEO, VP of Marketing, VP of Sales, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Revenue Officer

Each day I prospect, I am pulling a list of 10 new suspects to contact. (If I was doing this as a full-time sales rep, I’d increase this to at least 20).

Moving Suspects to Prospects

I’m in this for the long haul. Before someone hires me, they need to trust me and believe I have the capability to help them. Then timing must be right. They must have a need and a budget. Rarely will this all happen on the first call.

The hard sell won’t work.

With Suspects, I want to make them aware of what I do and how I can help them at a very high level.

Here’s how I am doing this:

Email outreach

  1. I send the Suspect a personal email saying “I help Tech Companies fix sales problems” , a customized note and a link to my website. Then I’ll follow up over a period of weeks/months with articles or emails that I think might be relevant to them.
  2. I want to have a conversation with Suspects, but it needs to be meaningful for them. I won’t just ask for their time to introduce myself. I am looking for a reason why they want a conversation. It could be an industry trend, something changing in their company or an idea I have for them.
  3. Research is required. I may be able to get a referral to a Suspect. We have a mutual connection. We might have worked for the same people or industry. I am looking for a “hook” that will intrigue them enough to have a conversation with me.

In Person Networking

As much as I dread networking events, in the past I’ve had decent success making connections with people at local tech events.  I have never found an immediate business opportunity from these. Instead, it’s a way to meet face to face and have a quick introductory conversation. Over time, some of these connections became friends, employers, employees or customers.

I’ve neglected this since starting ISD and will start getting “out there” in August.

In Person Lunches, Coffee, Drinks, Golf etc.

I never did a lot of these. I find them to be either a complete waste of time (when initially meeting) or super helpful (when we have already met) . I’ll probably do a few of these each quarter primarily with people I’ve already had conversations with before.

No Cold Calling

You read that right. I won’t be cold calling anyone out of the blue.

If I get a referral from someone, if I’ve already reached out via email, if I know the person, or if I think there’s  a really compelling reason for us to have a conversation (other than, I want your business), I’ll call.

But if you’ve never heard of me? Forget it.

My results from pure cold calling have always sucked. Even in the best cases when I had a team selling selling a low cost, highly-transactional product, it took 100 dials to have 3 conversations and we were lucky if one of those became an Opportunity.

I see no reason to think my results would be different today.

I don’t have the time and patience for this.

Nor do I have the volume of Suspects to squander with mindless dialing and smiling. Each of my Suspects has the potential to be a high paying client.

If you’ve just joined a new company, inherited a new territory or are otherwise trying to build up sales from scratch, I hope this gives you some ideas that help  you get started. 

In a few months, I’ll follow up with my results and any changes I make along the way.

Good luck and good selling,

Steve