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Everyone wants to be told how to get leads.

Few are willing to put in the work to get them.

I'm just saying what is fact.

When I pull back the curtain on prospecting, businesses are often doing a small portion of what needs to be done.

If you don't have pipeline then the majority of your day needs to be spent building it.

If you do have pipeline then you need to be maintaining at least 3x your revenue goal in it. (Do you have these goals mapped out?)

Either way, some part of your week needs to be put into building new business.

This is the age old question. What do I actually do to get leads?

First, let's simplify it. Alex Hormozi has the easiest 2x2 matrix I’ve every seen to break this down.

Warm Outreach - Think referrals or current network

Cold Outreach - Think emails or DMs or conferences

Post Content - Think a LinkedIn post or Youtube video

Run Paid Ads - Think Facebook Ads, Newsletter sponsorship or conference booth

Those are the 4 ways you get leads. Every tactic you can think of fits into one of those buckets.

So then what?

There are three levers you can pull once you choose the appropriate bucket.

→ Attention, Time and Money.

Attention: Where do you get the most visibility for your business

Time: How much time are you willing to spend on it

Money: How much money are you willing to spend on it

Let's go into each.

Where do we want to get attention from?

The best answer isn't in some book. You should already know it. Because it has to do with your ideal client.

Who is that?

For me, it's early-stage B2B Founders, typically doing under $1 million in revenue, looking for ways to build predictable revenue month-over-month and/or get to their next funding round.

Knowing that, I don't spend time on Instagram or TikTok. My clients are busy building their businesses. They are mostly on LinkedIn, they use YouTube to educate themselves, they read newsletters, and they attend various events to network.

I find that spending time creating content that educates at the top-of-funnel drives people to learn more about me.

That builds trust.

Something I wouldn't earn doing TikTok dances.

It's also why I don't do much cold outreach. Most of the people I am reaching out to have at least heard of me or I’ve engaged with them, so I’m not ice cold when I’m sending a message.

It's also why I've prioritized in-person events, workshops and meetups. The startup scene in the Raleigh-Durham area is vast. I’ve likely met some of you reading this at those events. It’s a great chance to meet people and start building real relationships.

So where do your clients spend their time?

What are they consuming?

Start there.

You've pinpointed the watering holes where your clients hang out.

Now what?

Since you only have so much time available, what are you going to do with it?

I focus on content creation and making connections.

That's why I post consistently on LinkedIn, comment on my 2nd and 3rd degree connections' posts, send video DMs, and write this newsletter. I even started creating educational YouTube videos last month to put out content in a different format, consistently.

Some of this is to get quicker wins. But most of it is to build awareness and create trust with potential clients.

A cornerstone of my business is deeper, long-term relationships.

So, that’s what works for me.

How much time are you really allocating to the high-yield activities?

Think about it in proportion to where you are right now.

If you're close to capacity on clients, higher-touch prospecting to future clients is important but not urgent. Maybe an hour or two a week is fine.

If you have no clients or a small amount, it should be the majority of your day.

Your time investment in outreach should match where your business is right now. It might not look like what your friend is doing. That's okay.

The most important thing: block the time on your calendar and protect it.

The last lever is money.

Ads might make sense for your business. Or maybe it's hiring someone to help with outbound activities you're not good at or don't enjoy doing. Maybe it’s getting a booth at a conference.

A friend of mine has a virtual assistant who handles his LinkedIn outreach by sending connections and a warm intro. It lets him add volume without losing personalization.

He got a lead recently from what looked like a "cold" email. When he jumped on the discovery call, the prospect told him they had actually seen his two LinkedIn messages (never responded), followed his content for a couple weeks, and when the email came in, they recognized his name and replied because they needed his help.

That's how this stuff works. The touches add up before you ever know it.

I almost never run ads, but over the last year I decided to sponsor my friend Adriana Tica's newsletter, Strategic AF. She and I have a similar tone and she has an engaged audience with folks that would be ideal clients. A lot of you reading this might have come from seeing that sponsorship.

That's exactly why I did it.

Does sponsoring or ad placements always work? Nope. But if it's right for your business, try it and see what happens.

There are many ways to spend money.

Where your clients hang out plus what your budget allows is where to start looking for those opportunities.

I know everyone wants the silver bullet answer. I wish it existed.

Every business is unique in how they might acquire their clients. Some are purely referral driven and never do a single outbound touch. Others only do outbound and it works for them. You have to pick a spot to start.

But, to give you a lifeline, if you are absolutely befuddled right now, the progression below isn’t a bad checklist to work down and exhaust. You’re likely not doing one or all of these right now.

The lowest hanging fruit goes like this…

Current clients → Are there upsell or cross-sell opportunities?

Current clients → Are they willing to make a referral?

Past clients → Do they need more work now?

Past clients → Are they willing to make a referral?

Close connections (family, friends, peers, former co-workers, etc) → Do they know what you do and who an ideal client looks like?

Whether it’s starting with the above or doing something different, if your pipeline is empty, ask yourself three questions.

When you're banging your head against the wall, it's almost always one of those three.

Take a long look in the mirror.

That's usually the right place to start.

Have you ever sat down and mapped out a plan for your outreach?

Take 30 minutes this week and prioritize this. Use a pen and paper or your favorite LLM. Talk through your current business, think about where your clients come from, and map out a strategy for content and outreach.

What feels right for your business?

Then go take action on it. You'll adjust over time and focus on the areas bearing the most fruit, but now you have something concrete to go off of instead of just scrambling when the pipeline feels thin.

A healthy, full pipeline solves a lot of business problems.

Always keep it top of mind.

Once you map it out, reply and send it to me. I'd love to see it. I read every reply.

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