Lead Generation and Baseball: They’re Actually Kind of Similar (Pod)

Today, I want to talk a little lead generation, but I want to hit it from a slightly different angle and squeeze in a little baseball. Not a natural pairing I admit, but stick with me because, I tend to have a slightly different way of looking at things, and I think I can make fetch happen. And the very least, it won’t be boring.

So let’s start with lead generation. This, if you ask me, is the fun stuff. It’s the things you do to get in front of all those anonymous folks out there who need what you do so you can bring bodies through the door and put cheeks in the seats.

Some folks are naturals at this stuff. For everyone else, lead generation is a learned skill. And it’s kind of important if you’re thinking about trying to build and maintain a clientele.

When you threw up that Open for Business sign for the first time, chances are you were a little light in the “finding new customers” department.

I’d be willing to bet a part of the baby’s college fund that when you first got started, most of your focus was all about getting to that first sale and the sale after that.

I don’t blame you. After all, a little cash flow comes in handy when you need to pay rent and keep the lights on.

Don’t ask me why, but it occurred to me that, that’s probably the same mindset that pro baseball players have when they finally get called up from the minors and make it to “the show.” After working their butts off to reach the majors, the last thing they want is to be “sent back down.”

It also occurred to me that hitting a baseball for them is like making sales for you. It’s absolutely essential and it’s the one skill you absolutely must be good at if you want to have a long career.

What’s a little confusing to me, is what baseball people consider to be good when it comes to hitting.

When he originally dropped those pearls of wisdom, I doubt he realized how many times it would be quoted and re-quoted during and after his lifetime.

As motivational quotes go, it’s a doozy because it seems to look at failure from a positive viewpoint.

What most people pull from that quote is that a 100% success rate isn’t required to have a good career. Just keep swinging.

Being the contrarian that I am, what I find interesting is what’s left out of that quote.

Ted Williams is considered, by people who follow baseball, to be the best hitter of all time. But he didn’t get that title just because of his batting average.

Don’t get me wrong, his career batting average was impressive, but it wasn’t the greatest in history. That distinction goes to Ty Cobb.

What Ted Williams did have was the highest on-base percentage (OBP) in history.

You’re OBP isn’t just about hits. It’s a measure of how often you get on base. That’s whether you get a hit, the pitcher walks you, or plunks you upside the head with a wild pitch.

Your on-base percentage is better than your batting average when it comes to measuring success for one simple reason. If you want to score, you’ve got to get on base.

Ted Williams’ career batting average was .344. Which means he got a hit about one out of every three times he stepped to the plate. Like I said, that was pretty impressive, but his on-base percentage was just short of .482. So whether he got a hit or not, he got on base, on average, every other time he stepped into the batters box.

Clearly he understood that getting hits was important or he wouldn’t be top five all time. But he also seemed to understood that as important as hits were, getting on base was just as important because it gave him the opportunity to score.

Use Your Website to Increase Your Lead Generation On-Base Percentage

Often, when I bring on a website, the first thing a new client will ask me is how to get to the first page of Google so they can start making sales.

Sticking with our baseball analogy, that’s the same as asking me what can they do to improve their batting average.

At first blush, the question makes a lot of sense because sales are important. However, if you roll with that specific focus you’re going to end up with a lot of missed opportunities.

On a typical day, only about two out of every ten visitors who stop by your website are anywhere near ready to buy something. The rest are doing research. They want information.

By focusing exclusively on sales, you’re ignoring the majority of people who visit your website which will seriously get in the way of your ability to increase your on-base percentage.

I want you to assume that everyone who lands on your website is interested in purchasing services similar to the ones you provide.

They’ll make that purchase at some point. It could be next week. It could be several months from now. But assume that they’re going to purchase something.

That means that everyone who hits your website presents you with an opportunity. Because even if you don’t get a hit, as in making a sale, you can still get on base and give yourself the opportunity to score.

Tools to Increase Your Lead Generation On-Base Percentage

The method I recommend for giving yourself this opportunity is by working to get visitors onto your email list.

The key lead generation benefit for this approach is that it puts everyone in play. Once they get onto your list you can reach out to them.

There are a lot of different platforms you can use to build your list. I've used several but if you've got an extremely tight budget, you may want to check out Systeme.io because they have a free tier for lists up to 2000 names. That comes with all the required bells and whistles as opposed to other services that charge between $45 and $60 for the same functionality.

Which, if you’re just getting started is a nice bill not to have to pay.

How good you are at getting on base will depend to a large part on how you set your website up or if you’re a little light in the geekdom, how your web designer set your website up.

Build it right and your website will come at visitors from a few different angles all of which will be working to give you a chance to up your lead generation on-base percentage.

Here are a few of those features just give you a taste of what we’re talking about:

1. Lead Magnets
   Targeted offers that appeal to targeted segments of your audience

2. Multiple Sign Up Forms, Pop-Ups, Slide-Ins & Info Bars
   Add sign up forms to the pages that get the most traffic and use attention-getting on-page features

3. Website Analytics Software
   Discover what visitors are most interested and provide more of that type of content

4. Retargeting Pixels
   Build an accurate profile of your website visitors for future ad campaigns

Each one of these tools plays a slightly different part in the process but they all come together to give you as many opportunities as possible to engage with the folks on your website who need what you do.

The Take Away: Lead Generation is a Skill You Can Learn

There’s no way to know exactly what each visitor is looking for when they visit your website. However, if you have a solid understanding of your target audience you can easily set your website up for whatever they will be looking for no matter where they are in the buying process.

Some of the folks that visit your website are going to be ready to purchase. Others are there for information. Your goal is to be able to sell to each of these groups when they’re ready.

By positioning your website to be a resource, you increase your lead generation on-base percentage which is how you give yourself the opportunity to make sales.

If you want me to take a quick look at your website and give you a few tips on how to increase your lead generation on-base percentage, go to https://chriscarter.net/appointments to schedule a quick consultation.

Remember, it’s like baseball, you can’t make sales unless you get on base.