Do you have a business that needs to generate leads? If not, then it's time for some soul-searching. Without leads, the company will never grow and won't be able to produce any revenue. There are many reasons why lead generation isn't working properly for your business. In this post we'll discuss 5 of them: unqualified or uninterested leads, ads with too much competition, lack of exclusivity in the offer, and high investment risk.

Issue 1: The Leads Aren’t Interested or Qualified

Many people who are interested in your product don't make it to the next step because they aren't qualified. They might be too young, not have enough income for a higher down payment, lack assets that can secure the loan and so on. It's important to know what kind of buyer you're targeting before sending them anything.

Don't waste leads by trying to market things like homes for first-time homebuyers if the person has no experience with mortgages and hasn't worked yet! Make sure your marketing is relevant to who you want as prospects.

This will help increase conversion rates from those who qualify instead of wasting time with those who won't.

Issue 2: The Ads Aren't Specific to the Area or Demographic

If you want your ads to stand out, then you need an audience with specific tastes in common! You can do this by targeting custom audiences based on demographics like age, gender, income level...etc or even psychographics such as values, attitudes and lifestyles. These types of approaches will make sure that you go after the prospects that have the most intent.

If you want to get really specific, then you can target people who have a similar buying or social media interests. This will make the ad stand out and your audience is much more likely to be interested in what you offer!

Issue 3: The 'Marketing Company' is a Risky Investment

It sucks, but within our team we are constantly picking up the pieces that other lead generation companies left behind. Mostly due to them overpromising and under delivering. If you’ve invested or are currently investing in lead generation marketing, you've probably seen this first hand.

Lead Generation. It sounds like an oxymoron. But there are people who offer to generate "leads" for your company at a high cost, and then charge even more money when they fail to deliver the promised leads. One sales person I spoke with had been on this 'program' for six months before realizing it was just a lead farm - he kept getting the same recycled leads every month! And now his company is out $20k! So where did that money go? It went into some other business owner's pocket -- not yours.

This type of risky investment may be fine if you're willing to take risks but you should be working with a company that stands behind their products and minimizes your risk as much as possible. Of course the best way to grow your business is to invest in marketing but if you are not getting any type of ROI - it's not an investment, just a bad decision.

Issue 4: Your Leads Lack Specificity

What are you getting from your lead generator? You are likely paying for a large list of potential clients and yet, when it comes time to make that first contact - is there anything specific about them? It's important at this point in the process to have information on them such as: name, credit score, income, & timeline to buy. If not then just sending an email could be more like shooting fish in a barrel because they're all so unspecific. Putting too many people into one bucket only makes things harder for everyone involved.

You may have less leads than you expected but if those few leads each include information about who they are and where they are financially-you'll find that your conversations will go much smoother and actually turn into applications.

Issue 5: The Leads are Shared

Have you ever gotten a lead before and when you called the borrower told you no because you're the 15th person that tried calling them - that day alone!? No one is going to give you the time of day if they are being bombarded like that, and even if they do I promise you're not going to want to work with them. All you're going to do is get into a price competition between all 14 other lenders that they have already talked to. The borrowers hold ALL the control - and you never want to be in that position.

If you're investing in lead generation you shouldn't have to fight to be the first to reach out to them and hope someone else didn't get there first. Make sure your leads are exclusive and not shared with any other lender or it is going to be a constant battle that you will lose 9 times out 10.