I've been getting lots of email from my readers lately. And one thing that I hear often is that people need more sales leads.

In order to generate sales leads, you need three things:

• A written profile of your target prospect,
• A list of suspects containing potential prospects,
• A method of reaching your sales prospects.

In this article, I am going to discuss eight proven methods of reaching your sales prospects.

Complementary Partner Referrals

I put this sales lead generation method first because this one generates the highest quality sales leads. How you do this depends on the market you are in. There have been a lot of articles written about networking through chamber and association meetings, so I won't rehash that here.

If you are selling business to Business, you want to strike up relationships with sales reps from companies who call on the same Businesses as you do. An example is if you sell an information technology consulting service, then partner with a few computer systems hardware vendors. These reps call on the same customers as you and you complement each other by sharing leads and information about customers and prospects.

Cold Calling

As much as nearly everyone dislikes this one, it is very effective for sales lead generation when executed properly. If you consistently prospect for leads by phone, you will consistently generate sales leads.

You can find more cold calling tips at my website listed at the end of this article.

Live Seminars

Live seminars are a great sales lead generation technique because you are usually delivering your a pitch to a prospect very early in their buying process. The key to a successful seminar is offering a solution to a problem that your target market really wants to solve. You can give the pitch yourself, or get one of your company executives to do it (sometimes Business "celebrity" can help pull more sales prospects in).

Live seminars can be done inexpensively. The costs for in-person seminars are comprised of room rental, refreshments, audio-visual equipment, and promotion. Teleseminars are the least expensive, with the only costs being conference phone line rental and promotion. Webinars are actually more expensive due to the hefty fees the online meeting services charge to use their services.

Trade Shows

Trade shows are a good way generate sales leads if you can find events highly targeted to your prospect audience. Often such events yield low-quality sales leads because they are attended by the recommenders and influencers and rather than the true decision-makers.

I rate this method lower on the list, yet it is a valuable one if your company has the budget and there are industry events well-targeted to your audience.

Mass Mailings

Sales letters are one of the more underused sales lead generation methods. There is an entire industry of people dedicated to selling this way called direct

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