Do you need B2B lead generation coaching, or is training enough?

For some people, training is enough. For others, B2B lead generation coaching is what makes the difference between knowing how lead gen works and generating leads consistently.

Which one you are depends less on how much you know and more on how you work.

When B2B lead generation training is enough on its own

Some people are committed enough to take a lead gen course, build the strategy and run it without anyone checking their work. They finish what they start. They apply what they learn while they are learning it, rather than saving it for a quieter month sometime in the future.

If that is you, training will do the job.

One thing matters though. You need somewhere to ask questions. Getting stuck on your own for a fortnight is how good strategies stop. That is why people taking the Complete B2B lead gen course can ask questions throughout, and join my office hours. When you get stuck, someone moves you along quickly instead of you losing time to it.

What a lead generation coach gives you that a course cannot

A course teaches you the method. A coach looks at what you are actually doing with it.

That means a fresh pair of eyes on your strategy, and someone who can spot the mistakes before you make them rather than three months later when the numbers come in flat.

It also means staying on track. There is an endless amount you could be doing in lead generation. New channels, new content, new tools, new ideas from people who have never sold what you sell. A coach keeps you focussed on the things that will actually produce leads for your business.

Coaching does not mean someone else runs your lead generation

Coaching is not outsourcing. You still do the work. If you want it done for you, that is consulting, and it is a different purchase.

What you get with a lead generation coach is that you get better at lead generation every month. The work happens, and your capability grows while it does. Outsourcing gives you the first part and none of the second.

Why coaching and training work best together

Coaching goes further when the person being coached already has the method.

If you have done the training, the conversations start from a different place. You are not spending sessions on the basics, you are applying something you already know to a live situation. That is why members of the B2B Lead Accelerator get access to the complete course as part of it.

Your coach should have generated a lot of leads

All of this assumes one thing: that the person coaching you has generated a serious volume of leads themselves through their own knowledge, skill and actions.

Lead generation coaching from someone who has read about lead generation is worth very little. The value is in pattern recognition, and pattern recognition comes from having done it many times, recently, in conditions like the ones you are in now.

Why a lead generation coach might turn you down

You may struggle to find a coach who will take you on.

When I decide who to coach, I have to be confident the person can actually do B2B lead generation. Not that they can already do it, but that they are capable of learning to. That means the right attitude, a willingness to learn and to listen, and the ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes, which is most of what lead gen is. It also means knowing what they are good at and what they are not, so they bring in support where they need it.

If that is not there, the coaching relationship fails, and I get scapegoated for leads that were never going to arrive.

The clearest example is when a business has hired the wrong person to run their lead gen and wants me to coach them into competence. I can usually see quite quickly that it will not work. Some of the ones I have turned down:

• A prospect who asked for a proposal, chased it, then told me two days after I had submitted it that she had already hired someone in house and wanted me to coach them instead.
• Someone who asked for help launching a podcast, then got annoyed when I said a podcast was not the best use of their time.
• Someone who wanted me to tell her what to write on her website. I would expect to help a coaching client build a framework for their website copy. Writing it is a couple of days of work and not what I am being paid for.

In all of these instances, I said no because the working relationship would not have produced leads.

Which one is right for you: lead gen coaching or lead gen training?

If you are self-directed, will do the work without prompting, and just need the method and somewhere to ask questions, take the training.

If you want someone checking your thinking, catching the mistakes early and keeping you pointed at the right activity while you build the capability yourself, that is what coaching is for.

By Heather Baker. Famous lead gen engine builder.