Jack and I had made tremendous progress in a month’s time.  He got clear on his goals and vision for his firm, he chose his target market and honed his marketing message, and he created his prospect kit and other essential marketing materials.  With the groundwork in place, he was finally ready to start marketing effectively.

In our next session we began talking about what lead generation strategies he wanted to employ.  This step is the easiest to understand, but requires the most effort.  Up to this point, all of the steps we took required an initial investment of time but the results would pay dividends for months and years to come.  Yes, he would have to review and adjust his goals, his marketing message and his materials, but the effort to modify them would not take nearly as long as the initial effort to create them in the first place.

On the other hand, lead generation is an ongoing process.  There are certain things we would do to systematize his lead generation activities, but much of it would require an ongoing commitment of time and effort on his part.  Jack got the iced coffee and the banana nut muffins and I pulled out my notepad and started jotting down a list of potential lead generation activities for him to consider.  Here are the seven activities that I included on the list in the order in which I suggested he should employ them:

• referral systems
• writing and publishing (a book, his blog, trade journal articles, and/or consumer articles)
• joint ventures
• speaking, workshops and teleseminars
• networking
• publicity (online and offline)
• direct response advertising (optional)

I suggested he add one strategy at a time, and that he attempt to add a new strategy at least monthly (while continuing to utilize the strategies already put in place).  For example, we would first put into place a formal referral marketing system.  Once that was in place and was being utilized on an ongoing basis, then we would begin a formal campaign of writing, and so on.  Eventually he would have all seven methods working for him (if he chose to advertise).

Note: each of these lead generation activities deserve further explanation beyond what this article allows.  I will begin posting about each one separately from this series of articles.  Those articles exploring the specifics of each lead generation activity will be categorized and tagged “lead generation” for your easy reference.

Because Jack was launching a blog, we decided to pursue the first two strategies simultaneously.  We discussed his referral marketing strategy and how he could be more systematic about it, and we agreed on a posting schedule for his blog.  Because he was just launching it, he committed to post to the blog 3-5 times per week for the first 60 days in order to maximize his search engine results.

Although we were not ready to begin implementing a joint venture strategy yet, we began brainstorming potential j.v. partners; the obvious choice for his divorce practice being marriage counselors.  We discussed the other strategies and mapped out a marketing plan for a full year.

These were the marketing tactics that Jack had expected we were going to talk about when we first started meeting several weeks earlier.  And, although he now understood that we had to take those foundational steps first, he was excited to see how the marketing plan was coming together.  Next week we would discuss what to do once he started getting leads.

Coming Next: Lesson 5 - Follow Up & Educate

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