Leads. Leads. Leads. They are the fuel that drives your sales engine. Without leads, your sales efforts will go nowhere fast. Finding ways to generate more leads is a critical business development strategy that you cannot afford to ignore.

Three ways to get more leads

Here are three ways you can generate more leads to fuel your sales engine:

1. Offer something of value for a limited time. You may have plenty of prospects who are interested in your products or services, but do not have an urgent need to take the next step to become a lead. If you offer something of value free for a limited time, it can spur those prospects into becoming a lead. The free time period can be a month, a week, or even just a day. At the end of the free period, that offering should become a product that you sell to your customers.

2. Give your existing customers a reason to refer your company. A customer referral is gold when it comes to leads. The customer already knows your products or services. They can give personal testimony to others about your brand. Your existing customers have a good idea of those in their circle who would likely be most interested in your company’s offerings. The key is to give those existing customers a reason to make the referral. Offer a discount or freemium to those customers who make a referral that turns into a sale.

3. Use cross-promotions and co-marketing to your advantage. Do you have a supplier or a vendor that offers a complementary, non-competitive product that you could cross-promote? You would form an alliance where each would share leads, promote products together, and do other mutually beneficial activities. Leads that are generated from these kinds of partnerships can be high quality. The difficulty is that you need to have a partner that you can trust and you need to manage that relationship closely to get the most benefits.

Each of these techniques will help you generate leads now and in the future. That is a business development strategy that will pay dividends in a healthy, growing company. Your company.

Do you have any unique ways that you use to generate leads?