You will be able to rate lead sources on fit, cost and how warm each lead is when you first contact them.
Score every lead source from 1 to 5 on three things, fit, cost and warmth, then add the three scores. Focus next quarter on the two sources with the highest totals.
You will often be offered shortcuts to leads. One is a networking breakfast with "two hundred business owners". Another is a spreadsheet of ten thousand company contacts for less than the price of a dinner. A third is a paid ad promising enquiries while you sleep. Some of these work and some waste a month, and from the outside they look about the same. Scoring lets you tell them apart before you spend the month on one.
Fit is how many people from a source match the profile you built in lesson 1.4. A source full of the wrong people is slow however cheap it is.
Cost covers both money and time. A free event that takes up a whole Saturday still costs you the Saturday. A list that downloads in a minute but takes days to clean has cost you those days.
Warmth is how the person feels about hearing from you. A lead who filled in your enquiry form is warm, and so is a lead introduced by a friend. A name on a purchased list has never heard of you and did not ask to hear from you, so it is the coldest lead there is.
On each of the three, 5 is always the good end. A 5 for fit means nearly everyone fits. A 5 for cost means cheap in both money and time. A 5 for warmth means the person asked to hear from you.
Events work when people in your profile attend them. An industry meetup, a trade show for your buyers' sector, or an alumni night for a school your kind of customer went to will give you a high share of people who fit. A general networking evening usually does not work, because everyone there is a seller looking for buyers. Mei, a bookkeeper, meets founders and operations managers at a food and beverage trade event, and they fit her profile. At a general business mixer she meets other freelancers selling to the same founders. Before you sign up for any event, ask the organiser or a past attendee who actually comes.
Events are medium on warmth. Meeting in person helps, but a two-minute chat over coffee is a thin connection, so follow up within a couple of days while people still remember your face. Be careful with the business cards you collect. A card does not give you consent to add someone to everything you send, and lesson 5.2 explains why.
An inbound enquiry comes to you through your website, a social media message or a call to your office. It is the warmest cold lead you will get, because the person came to you. That warmth fades fast, so reply quickly, ideally the same working day. A reply sent three days later reaches someone who has already spoken to two of your competitors.
Inbound leads are uneven. Some fit perfectly. Others want something you do not offer, or want it at a price you will not match. Before booking a long meeting, ask two or three short questions that check fit against your profile. Darren, an adviser, asks people who enquire about their family situation and what made them get in touch now. A twenty-five-year-old who wants a quote for the cheapest policy available may be better served by a comparison website than by a ninety-minute meeting with him.
Bought lists, and lists scraped from directories and websites, look like the fastest way to fill a pipeline but in practice score low on almost everything. They are cold, because nobody on them asked to hear from you. They are often out of date, since people change jobs, numbers change hands and companies close. They also raise questions under Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act about where the data came from and whether you may use it for marketing, and any Singapore phone numbers on them must be checked against the Do Not Call Registry. Module 5 covers both. A list of companies with no personal details can still be a starting point for research. Use it as a set of names to look up, and do not message the people on it.
Public information you can read for free is the most underused source. Company websites, job ads, news coverage and social media posts show what a business is doing right now. In Singapore, ACRA's Bizfile service lets you buy a business profile showing a company's registered details, which is useful for checking that a business is real and still trading. Public sources rarely give you a lead on their own. They give you context for a first message, such as a new outlet, a job ad or a founder's recent post. Lesson 3.2 and lesson 4.3 build on this context.
Start by listing the lead sources you could use this quarter. For each one, check fit against your profile from lesson 1.4, and for events ask the organiser or a past attendee who attends. Check cost in money and in time, including the time it takes to attend, clean a list or follow up. Check warmth by asking how the person will feel about hearing from you. Score each of the three from 1 to 5, add them, and pick the two sources with the highest totals.
Mei rated four sources for the next quarter:
Food and beverage trade event: fit 4, cost 2, warmth 3, total 9 Website enquiries: fit 3, cost 4, warmth 5, total 12 Bought list of company contacts: fit 2, cost 3, warmth 1, total 6 Researching job ads and company websites for her profile: fit 5, cost 4, warmth 2, total 11
Her ranking is website enquiries at 12, public research at 11, the trade event at 9 and the bought list at 6. She focuses on website enquiries and on researching job ads and company websites. She has not ruled out the trade event for good, and may go back to it when it costs less to attend or when she has time to follow up properly.
The scores are deliberately rough. You are deciding where to spend the next three months, and a fair guess is better than waiting for perfect data. A source with a lower score can be revisited later if conditions change.
In the activity below, rate four sources you could use this quarter on fit, cost and warmth, add up each total, and pick the two with the highest scores.
Pick four lead sources you could use this quarter, score each from one to five on fit, cost and warmth, and keep the two with the highest totals.
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