Creative Corner: Build Your Ark
How to build a pipeline and keep leads flowing
June 2006 By Lois Geller
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A couple of months ago, two engineers dropped by our office to talk about a lead generation program for their consultancy business. “Things are slow,” said one of them, “and we might have to lay off some of our staff.”
So we asked questions and learned about how they made their money, got an idea of their budget and then we went to work developing a program.
I called them a week or so later to set up our next meeting and they asked if we could postpone for a while because they were up to their elbows in a new project that had just come in.
“Sure, we can wait,” I said.
I wanted to add, “But I don’t know if you can,” and then ask if they’d ever heard of Howard Ruff.
Howard Ruff was one of the first of financial self-help authors. I remember him for one great line he came up with in 1975. He wrote, “It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”
When our engineer clients get close to the end of their current project, their pipeline will be empty, and they’ll come in for another talk. But if they’d launched their lead generation program while they were busy, their next two projects would already be walking through the door.
Start Building Before it Rains
When Mason & Geller was based in New York, I’d occasionally get a direct mail piece, usually a postcard with a smiling face of a realtor on it, and copy reading something like, “I just sold apartment 26J in 80 Park Avenue.”
Here in Miami, my mailbox overflows with postcards from realtors, developers and investment groups wanting me to buy real estate. Not one of these mailings stands out. Some are expensive and fancy—a blond couple sipping white wine on a balcony overlooking Biscayne Bay with a headline promising, more or less, “Deluxe luxurious luxury of luxness.” Some are corporate bland—“Churn & Earn is committed to you.” And some are just flimsy postcards with smiling agents in their new blazers boasting, “Billy Bob and Earnestine Grubb just sold apartment 1234 at 789 East 56 Street.”
The real estate people who send out all that mail make no effort to be memorable, no effort at branding, no effort to provide a valuable service. There’s no voice, no personality—nothing distinctive or unusual or appealing.
So we asked questions and learned about how they made their money, got an idea of their budget and then we went to work developing a program.
I called them a week or so later to set up our next meeting and they asked if we could postpone for a while because they were up to their elbows in a new project that had just come in.
“Sure, we can wait,” I said.
I wanted to add, “But I don’t know if you can,” and then ask if they’d ever heard of Howard Ruff.
Howard Ruff was one of the first of financial self-help authors. I remember him for one great line he came up with in 1975. He wrote, “It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”
When our engineer clients get close to the end of their current project, their pipeline will be empty, and they’ll come in for another talk. But if they’d launched their lead generation program while they were busy, their next two projects would already be walking through the door.
Start Building Before it Rains
When Mason & Geller was based in New York, I’d occasionally get a direct mail piece, usually a postcard with a smiling face of a realtor on it, and copy reading something like, “I just sold apartment 26J in 80 Park Avenue.”
Here in Miami, my mailbox overflows with postcards from realtors, developers and investment groups wanting me to buy real estate. Not one of these mailings stands out. Some are expensive and fancy—a blond couple sipping white wine on a balcony overlooking Biscayne Bay with a headline promising, more or less, “Deluxe luxurious luxury of luxness.” Some are corporate bland—“Churn & Earn is committed to you.” And some are just flimsy postcards with smiling agents in their new blazers boasting, “Billy Bob and Earnestine Grubb just sold apartment 1234 at 789 East 56 Street.”
The real estate people who send out all that mail make no effort to be memorable, no effort at branding, no effort to provide a valuable service. There’s no voice, no personality—nothing distinctive or unusual or appealing.
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