Not all leads are created equal. While we all know that business is a numbers game, some may not be playing the right numbers. You hear it all the time: get 10,000 email subscribers, as many social follows as possible, or 400 leads in your queue and you’re on the path to success. This is not really true, because there’s a lot to be said about the quality of those numbers.

Let me ask you this: would you rather spend 3 hours and $100 getting 1,000 highly-targeted email subscribers, or the same amount of time getting 10,000 faceless, random ones? I hope you said 1,000, because that is where we will be focusing today. To be successful in business, you need to focus on quality over quantity.

Imagine you had to pay $50 per lead – wouldn’t you want to know for certain that these were highly-qualified leads who were the most likely to become clients or customers? Your time is more valuable than anything else in your business – if you are spending it getting leads, then you had better be sure they are worth it!

To be clear, qualified leads are those who are most likely to become clients/customers, based on their demographic, your target market, the referral systems you use, and more.

Start With What You Have

You can start to narrow your lead focus by sitting down and writing out who your top clients are or have been. What was their demographic? What did they do? What made them such perfect clients in your mind? Try to get 8-10 on this list.

Then, think about each client on the list and write out how you got them. Were they referred by a friend or colleague? Did they come in through an ad? Did you cold-call them? Go into some detail on how they became your client. Remember: success leaves clues.

Finally, ask yourself what it was that made them agree to meet with you and/or to become a client. What was their biggest challenge, and how did you respond to it? How did you help them?

Or Look to What You Want

If you are so new that you have not had any clients yet (or none you’d say you really liked), then sit and think about who your perfect client might be. What demographic? What do they do? How would you like your business relationship to look?

Then you can look into who has your “perfect clients” now. How do they attract clients? What common problems are they solving? And how can you position yourself to do so in a way custom to you?

Taking the time to identify your market will make your efforts to attract leads at least 100% more effective. Without this, you are essentially just firing blindly and will spend far more time and effort in “converting” than necessary. Do not do this to yourself or your business!

Once you’ve decided on the type of lead you’d like to attract, you can use this information to guide your marketing efforts, sales language, copywriting, budget, and much more. It’s a powerful starting place, and one you will want to revisit at least once per year to stay on top of the game.</p