A conversation about lead generation with Alina Engel

As a born entrepreneur and a real social creature, it’s not surprising she chose lead generation. This article will go through the ‘why’ and her main tips and tricks for the right mindset and process. She will also share how she interacts with potential customers and is able to create real and lasting relationships in a short period of time. In the end, that is what selling should be all about: your relationship with the customer.

A globetrotting entrepreneur with a “German Shepherd syndrome.”

Despite being only 28, Alina is someone with ample experience when it comes to making conversation with strangers. After finishing school in Cologne, she worked in Ireland for a few months before starting her International Business degree at Maastricht University in The Netherlands. Globetrotter at heart, she finished with an exchange semester at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and followed with several internships around the world. She finished off with a master’s degree in Management Innovation and business development at Copenhagen Business school in Denmark, during which time she started her first company.

“People do often dislike lead generation,” she tells me. “But that is because they have the wrong idea about what it means. Lead generation is not about selling something quickly. It’s about finding out what the person on the other side of the line needs and how you can offer them something that makes their life easier. That is something that creates value.”

The most important thing when you want to start with lead generation is that you have to like people, and you have to like talking to people. “My friends always say I have ‘German Shepherd syndrome,'” she tells me. “I love gathering people, and connecting people, getting the pack together. And during COVID-19, lead generation is the easiest way to do that when I’m working.”

As Alina has been immensely successful with lead generation for some of our customers over the last couple of months, we asked her to share her approach.

The right mindset

• Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone to call a potential customer. It usually is not as bad as it seems. “Kill them with kindness.”
• Don’t see it as a sales talk but as a conversation. Have a conversation opener that triggers interest and be someone they want to speak with, not someone who just wants to sell the product or service.
• Get a thick skin. Don’t take anything personally, because the thing is: you never know what the situation is of the person on the other side.

The right process

• Get SUPERorganized. Research exactly who you want to speak to: is there a recent change in position or some other detail about the organization and the person you’re calling that can help you build a relationship? Don’t just call from a random list.
• Take your time. Make sure the conversation can be as long as you want. You don’t want to break up a great conversation with a potential customer because you have another meeting.
• Try calling at different times for different types of people. “I found that medical specialists are often available on Friday mornings,” says Alina.
• Block several hours and do nothing but calling. It is very intense to call, and it doesn’t work well if you do it in between other tasks, such as email. You need your full focus on the call and the (potential) customer. If all you do is lead generation, you should be able to make 100 calls a day. However, quality should always be more important than quantity.

Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships.

Existing leads and customers take up a lot of time from the Account Manager. Setting apart time for lead generation, which is already no everybody’s favorite task, can be challenging and takes away focus from nurturing existing customers and leads. This means that just having someone do that first step, warm up the leads, do the introduction, and plan a first appointment is of great value to many businesses. After that, the Sales and Account managers can take over and do the work they do best because they have a more in-depth knowledge of the product or service and know all the technical aspects. The result is that employees can spend more time doing the things they are good at and create value for your organization and your customers.

Do the chicken dance

The moral of the story is that lead generation, in the end, is always about teamwork and connection. As Motion5, that is what we focus on with our new and existing customers.

So, when you make that appointment, make sure you call your teammates and be like Alina: “Do the chicken dance.” As the American Robert Ingersol so eloquently said: “We rise by lifting others.”

Having the right planning, structure, call script, and market knowledge is important. Motion5 can help you build a solid value proposition, train your people, and support your performance and funnel management. For more information about how we can help you create more leads, contact our resident LG specialist Robert Bartels at r.bartels@motion5.com.