I really feel for business leaders today. If you care about revenue, you’re looking for answers. It’s got to be frustrating for you.

It seems everyone you talk to has the best answer to the dearth of leads. They say “Spend your marketing dollars on our ______, and your lead generation problems will be over.” All these say they’re the best:

• Industry trade shows
• Industry publications
• Search marketing firm
• Google AdWords
• Print ads
• Billboards
• Newspaper ads
• Telemarketing firms
• and many more

Let me relate a story of how a company can go off track.  I was working with a certain search marketing firm in a mid Atlantic state.

The CEO of this business decided to become a primary sponsor of the industry trade show in New York City — Search Engine Strategies. It sounded good. The girl selling the service was young, brunette, slim and attractive.  She had great data to show. It would cost about $18,000 and their company name and logo would be all over — in conferences, at lunch, etc.

The CEO turned to me  and said “Jeff, I really pray this works.  It’s a huge expense.” I bit my tongue. I thought it would probably be a waste of money, but he was determined.

You know the ending to the story. The trade show was sparsely attended, no decision makers went, they did not get one good lead from it, and their marketing budget was shot for the year. This is typical.

That SEO firm did what most companies do today — lurch from one tactic to another. They spend $50,000 on one program — it doesn’t work, then they try something else. Since nothing seems to work, the ax keeps falling on marketing leaders. The average tenure of a CMO is only two years.

It’s clear something is badly broken.

Which of these really work? In my humble opinion, you’re asking the wrong question. In reality, you should do NONE of the above. You ought to back up to the beginning and start over.

This is why the vision of Find New Customers is to help you fix this critical problem. By being YOUR short term CMO, we help you craft a process that works and saves considerable time and money.

• Time — because we know what do to do and
• Money — because you no longer waste it on projects that don’t work.

How do you start over? Craft a new value proposition.  Determine your ideal customer.   Develop personas.  Map content to personas and buying processes.  Create great content.

What do you think?  How do you think business leaders should address this challenge?  We welcome all comments.

Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, How to Find New Customers and Definitive Guide to Making Quota, as well the ebook, Prospect Driven Marketing. Find New Customers helps business develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.

In addition, Jeff’s hosting a great free webinar on content marketing with Joe Pullizi (Junta42 and co-author of Get Content, Get Customers on March 11th at noon ET.  Register athttps://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/536492297.