Just about every business has some kind of dirty little secret: I call it customer attrition. Rarely can a company claim someone as a customer for life. There’s always pressure from the competition and as a result, there will always be customer attrition.

Businesses do everything they can to retain their current base, but retention WILL not do it alone. Obviously it is essential for any organization to continuously grow revenue. Every business struggles to obtain the most valuable of assets: customer leads!

Generating leads is both a science and an art. Successful lead generation needs a methodical plan in the stages of conception and add that to the discipline of executing the plan effectively over time. So rare does a sales blitz work without a consistent, long-term execution.

Consistency is where most small-to-mid size firms fail in their lead-generation efforts. Smaller businesses have limited resources, and therefore, a dedicated lead-generation team is pretty much unheard of. Even in a mid-sized company, everyone from the CEO to the person who cleans the bathroom is expected to pitch in on any-and-all business efforts.

When business is booming, it is easy for the company to neglect essential lead-generation strategies for want of resources; this is because the entire staff is focused on serving current customers. This approach can be especially damaging when tough times hit — certainly witnessed recently.
With no primed funnel, customer attrition may prove fatal.

All Things Considered:

It’s near impossible for a small-to-mid sized company to bear the overhead cost of dedicated lead-generation personnel. That is where lead-generation outsourcing can be the very lifeblood of a business. The concept of “micro-sourcing” is becoming ever more prevalent as a means of outsourcing small, niche programs without a commitment on the part of the business owner. This concept works very well for outsourced lead generation, where initial programs can be launched with as few as three sales agents, or scaled upward with many hundreds of agents.

An outsourced lead-generation provider can apply the methodical, consistent elbow grease which is needed to keep a successful initiative swinging. A micro-outsourcing partner will work in collaboration with a business to establish a framework for the outreach

It promises to:

develop a prospect database with specifics on the decision maker, contact information and the buying profile of a prospect…
mechanize the outreach to prospects, either through telephone, email or Web-based methods…

create a catchy sales pitch…

provide a thorough feedback source as well as a follow-up engine…

guarantee a consistent volume of contact activity…

regularly evaluate and update training to determine what is and isn’t working…

and

allows for a high-touch handoff to internal sales personnel….