(
Jul 25, 2025
)
B2B lead generation is harder than ever, why?
Because everybody hates everybody.
Are warm, qualified leads ghosting you? You’re not alone…
If you’re being honest with me, you hate opening your inbox and LinkedIn DMs, right?
All you see in either are floods of sales pitches, each one sounding like the last. You’ve become numb to it, and I don’t blame you.
But if you hate it, you can’t be shocked that your ideal customer does.
I get it, you’re different, and your offer is great.
But if you’re acting in a similar way to the business that burned them in the past or the clear scams that are in their inbox,
Guess what? They’re going to associate you with them.
AI and various automation tools have made it easier than ever to do lead gen at scale, but that doesn't mean you should. I understand that a year ago you could hit LinkedIn or email at scale and get big results. Use me as an example, last October I booked a consultant 30 qualified meetings within 3 weeks, and an engineering consultancy firm 3 meetings, each worth 6-figures, in the first six weeks, but the industry has changed.
In my opinion, it’s changed for the better (assuming you know what you’re doing) The aforementioned consultant might have sat 30 meetings, but she only closed 7, but if your lead gen is good in the current market, you’ll only sit 14, but you’ll close 9 or 10.
People used to be a lot more willing to have a meeting, but now?
You’ll sit fewer meetings, but close more deals, assuming you know how to do it right.
So, how can you do lead gen right in 2025?
Super specific human pain points
One of our current clients is a project management consultant specialising in the manufacturing space. A year ago we could hit a pain point along the lines of ‘we save you time and money by getting X project done ahead of schedule.’
This doesn’t work anymore. Our best performer in Q2 was variations of:
You can enjoy your holiday this summer with your family, knowing that (exact project) will be completed to a high standard.
It wasn’t generic benefits like ‘saving time’, it was providing the mental clarity and the ability for the client to enjoy their family holiday without stressing about said project collapsing.
This level of personalisation does mean you can’t hit volume in the same way you could last year; you’ll likely generate fewer meetings, but you’ll close more deals.
This client has almost 50 days booked in Q3 on a £500 day rate. Why? Because we got human and truly put ourselves in our ideal customers' shoes.
Every business owner, or decision maker is a real person. They don’t wake up thinking ‘I want to save X money/time.’ They wake up thinking, ‘I need this project to be done so I can enjoy my holiday with my kids.’
People don’t stay awake at night thinking, ‘I want 30 qualified leads in 6 weeks.’ They’re thinking ‘‘I want to hire this person and build a team I’m proud of.’
I know it’s cringe, but the best lead gen right now, especially on LinkedIn, is specific and it’s empathetic to an individual's problem, not a broad benefit.
Understand longer sales cycles
It’s likely your prospect has worked with a company similar to yours before, and unfortunately, there's a good chance they’ve been burned.
I understand that you’re different and you’re not like that, but if you rush a close, or send a similar cold email/LinkedIn DM to that company, psychologically, they’re going to view you in the same light.
It’s not fair, but it’s true.
What’s worked well for us this year is:
Not selling in the first interaction
I call them ‘touch base’ messages. It’s like throwing your jab out in round 1 of a fight, you’re just letting them know you’re there, you’re setting up the knockout in the later rounds. Get in, then get out. If you throw a haymaker (cold sales pitch) in message 1, 99% of the time you’ll miss and get countered (waste a good lead).
Qualify first, make sure they have a positive opinion of you, casually end the conversation, and set a reminder in your CRM for a couple of weeks' time.
Everyone else in your prospect's inbox is selling in message 1, and they hate it. So the trust you build by not selling immediately differentiates you from everybody else vying for their business.
Worst case scenario? They don’t reply, and you can come back later and restart the process.
Consistent quality content focused on human pain points
With the way the LinkedIn algorithm works, now you’ve exchanged a few messages, they’ll start seeing your content in their feed, and assuming your content shows the problem you solve in fun, creative ways, and utilises case studies for authority, you’ll be building trust with your prospect.
People hate being told they have a problem, but if your content helps them come to the conclusion themselves, the next time you reach out, the trust, or the traditional ‘sales rapport’, will have been built.
Can you get a consistent lead flow on LinkedIn without posting content? Yes, you can. But it will be significantly fewer and much harder. You’ll need to build trust with each prospect individually; it will take longer, and you’ll lose any scale.
This is without even mentioning reply rates are always higher for accounts that post content consistently,
Retargeting campaigns
A lot of your leads won’t respond to your initial message, which is ok, don’t follow up immediately, come back in 4-6 weeks time and drop them another message related to a specific change in the industry, or something they mentioned in a recent post.
Now, when your reminder pops up in your CRM, what messages should you send? You have a few options:
Something related to your last conversation.
If they mentioned a project they were working on, ask about it. Or if they had a problem, ask how they solved it (then potentially offer your solution).
Relate it to a recent post
This is a classic for a reason; nobody ever complained that they’ve spoken about themselves too much. Link one of their recent posts to one of the problems you solve and direct the conversation.
Something stupid
Everyone in your prospects inbox will be acting ultra-professional, send a gif you think they’ll find funny based on their personality/content. Link said gif to their offer, posts etc. This makes you memorable.
I spoke earlier about treating your potential clients as real people, this does that.
One of my best ever campaigns was sending the Maverick taking his sunglasses off in Top Gun gif with the line ‘You when I send over (lead magnet) let me know if you’d like it.’
It was different, and because the lead magnet was good, we got responses. Plus we were targeting the aerospace industry, so we played into that.
If your offer is strong, and you’re good at what you do, all you need is attention and your ideal client to think you’re a good person; that’s it, that’s honestly all you need, this is what cuts through the noise.
Creative things like this work a treat.
PS. One of my favourites is sending the Eubank Jr shushing gif and relating it to one of the prospect's unpopular opinions, especially in masculine industries. Play your target audience..
Proper post-sales meeting sequences
The one meeting close is a rarity in the current market, so use that to your advantage. Even if you’re fairly certain they’d say yes, the trust you’ll build by being different is worth it.
Remember what I said before, about making sure your prospect can’t psychologically link you to a prior bad experience? Everyone has experienced a direct sales person.
I’m not saying lose control of the meeting, what I’m saying is put a second meeting in the calendar on the call. Put it for later in the week or the following one and say ‘I’m excited by the potential here, what I want to do it go away put everything we’ve spoken about into a proposal and go through my vision and the specifics for how I see this going, are you free on X or X?’
This not only gives you time to put something proper together, it builds trust with the prospect as there’s no stress or hassle on their end, and you’re not trying to push through a sale.
Across the board trust has never been lower, so we need to change the processes and customs that got us to this point, even if it wasn’t our fault.
If you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you’ve found it interesting. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter here, where I share live data from what’s been booking meetings for mid-high ticket offers for my clients. You could’ve read all of this in March. Don’t miss next month’s release!
Or if you want me to generate you some mid-high ticket qualified leads, book a time below.
More articles
(
Jul 25, 2025
)
B2B lead generation is harder than ever, why?
Because everybody hates everybody.
Are warm, qualified leads ghosting you? You’re not alone…
If you’re being honest with me, you hate opening your inbox and LinkedIn DMs, right?
All you see in either are floods of sales pitches, each one sounding like the last. You’ve become numb to it, and I don’t blame you.
But if you hate it, you can’t be shocked that your ideal customer does.
I get it, you’re different, and your offer is great.
But if you’re acting in a similar way to the business that burned them in the past or the clear scams that are in their inbox,
Guess what? They’re going to associate you with them.
AI and various automation tools have made it easier than ever to do lead gen at scale, but that doesn't mean you should. I understand that a year ago you could hit LinkedIn or email at scale and get big results. Use me as an example, last October I booked a consultant 30 qualified meetings within 3 weeks, and an engineering consultancy firm 3 meetings, each worth 6-figures, in the first six weeks, but the industry has changed.
In my opinion, it’s changed for the better (assuming you know what you’re doing) The aforementioned consultant might have sat 30 meetings, but she only closed 7, but if your lead gen is good in the current market, you’ll only sit 14, but you’ll close 9 or 10.
People used to be a lot more willing to have a meeting, but now?
You’ll sit fewer meetings, but close more deals, assuming you know how to do it right.
So, how can you do lead gen right in 2025?
Super specific human pain points
One of our current clients is a project management consultant specialising in the manufacturing space. A year ago we could hit a pain point along the lines of ‘we save you time and money by getting X project done ahead of schedule.’
This doesn’t work anymore. Our best performer in Q2 was variations of:
You can enjoy your holiday this summer with your family, knowing that (exact project) will be completed to a high standard.
It wasn’t generic benefits like ‘saving time’, it was providing the mental clarity and the ability for the client to enjoy their family holiday without stressing about said project collapsing.
This level of personalisation does mean you can’t hit volume in the same way you could last year; you’ll likely generate fewer meetings, but you’ll close more deals.
This client has almost 50 days booked in Q3 on a £500 day rate. Why? Because we got human and truly put ourselves in our ideal customers' shoes.
Every business owner, or decision maker is a real person. They don’t wake up thinking ‘I want to save X money/time.’ They wake up thinking, ‘I need this project to be done so I can enjoy my holiday with my kids.’
People don’t stay awake at night thinking, ‘I want 30 qualified leads in 6 weeks.’ They’re thinking ‘‘I want to hire this person and build a team I’m proud of.’
I know it’s cringe, but the best lead gen right now, especially on LinkedIn, is specific and it’s empathetic to an individual's problem, not a broad benefit.
Understand longer sales cycles
It’s likely your prospect has worked with a company similar to yours before, and unfortunately, there's a good chance they’ve been burned.
I understand that you’re different and you’re not like that, but if you rush a close, or send a similar cold email/LinkedIn DM to that company, psychologically, they’re going to view you in the same light.
It’s not fair, but it’s true.
What’s worked well for us this year is:
Not selling in the first interaction
I call them ‘touch base’ messages. It’s like throwing your jab out in round 1 of a fight, you’re just letting them know you’re there, you’re setting up the knockout in the later rounds. Get in, then get out. If you throw a haymaker (cold sales pitch) in message 1, 99% of the time you’ll miss and get countered (waste a good lead).
Qualify first, make sure they have a positive opinion of you, casually end the conversation, and set a reminder in your CRM for a couple of weeks' time.
Everyone else in your prospect's inbox is selling in message 1, and they hate it. So the trust you build by not selling immediately differentiates you from everybody else vying for their business.
Worst case scenario? They don’t reply, and you can come back later and restart the process.
Consistent quality content focused on human pain points
With the way the LinkedIn algorithm works, now you’ve exchanged a few messages, they’ll start seeing your content in their feed, and assuming your content shows the problem you solve in fun, creative ways, and utilises case studies for authority, you’ll be building trust with your prospect.
People hate being told they have a problem, but if your content helps them come to the conclusion themselves, the next time you reach out, the trust, or the traditional ‘sales rapport’, will have been built.
Can you get a consistent lead flow on LinkedIn without posting content? Yes, you can. But it will be significantly fewer and much harder. You’ll need to build trust with each prospect individually; it will take longer, and you’ll lose any scale.
This is without even mentioning reply rates are always higher for accounts that post content consistently,
Retargeting campaigns
A lot of your leads won’t respond to your initial message, which is ok, don’t follow up immediately, come back in 4-6 weeks time and drop them another message related to a specific change in the industry, or something they mentioned in a recent post.
Now, when your reminder pops up in your CRM, what messages should you send? You have a few options:
Something related to your last conversation.
If they mentioned a project they were working on, ask about it. Or if they had a problem, ask how they solved it (then potentially offer your solution).
Relate it to a recent post
This is a classic for a reason; nobody ever complained that they’ve spoken about themselves too much. Link one of their recent posts to one of the problems you solve and direct the conversation.
Something stupid
Everyone in your prospects inbox will be acting ultra-professional, send a gif you think they’ll find funny based on their personality/content. Link said gif to their offer, posts etc. This makes you memorable.
I spoke earlier about treating your potential clients as real people, this does that.
One of my best ever campaigns was sending the Maverick taking his sunglasses off in Top Gun gif with the line ‘You when I send over (lead magnet) let me know if you’d like it.’
It was different, and because the lead magnet was good, we got responses. Plus we were targeting the aerospace industry, so we played into that.
If your offer is strong, and you’re good at what you do, all you need is attention and your ideal client to think you’re a good person; that’s it, that’s honestly all you need, this is what cuts through the noise.
Creative things like this work a treat.
PS. One of my favourites is sending the Eubank Jr shushing gif and relating it to one of the prospect's unpopular opinions, especially in masculine industries. Play your target audience..
Proper post-sales meeting sequences
The one meeting close is a rarity in the current market, so use that to your advantage. Even if you’re fairly certain they’d say yes, the trust you’ll build by being different is worth it.
Remember what I said before, about making sure your prospect can’t psychologically link you to a prior bad experience? Everyone has experienced a direct sales person.
I’m not saying lose control of the meeting, what I’m saying is put a second meeting in the calendar on the call. Put it for later in the week or the following one and say ‘I’m excited by the potential here, what I want to do it go away put everything we’ve spoken about into a proposal and go through my vision and the specifics for how I see this going, are you free on X or X?’
This not only gives you time to put something proper together, it builds trust with the prospect as there’s no stress or hassle on their end, and you’re not trying to push through a sale.
Across the board trust has never been lower, so we need to change the processes and customs that got us to this point, even if it wasn’t our fault.
If you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you’ve found it interesting. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter here, where I share live data from what’s been booking meetings for mid-high ticket offers for my clients. You could’ve read all of this in March. Don’t miss next month’s release!
Or if you want me to generate you some mid-high ticket qualified leads, book a time below.
More articles
(
Jul 25, 2025
)
B2B lead generation is harder than ever, why?
Because everybody hates everybody.
Are warm, qualified leads ghosting you? You’re not alone…
If you’re being honest with me, you hate opening your inbox and LinkedIn DMs, right?
All you see in either are floods of sales pitches, each one sounding like the last. You’ve become numb to it, and I don’t blame you.
But if you hate it, you can’t be shocked that your ideal customer does.
I get it, you’re different, and your offer is great.
But if you’re acting in a similar way to the business that burned them in the past or the clear scams that are in their inbox,
Guess what? They’re going to associate you with them.
AI and various automation tools have made it easier than ever to do lead gen at scale, but that doesn't mean you should. I understand that a year ago you could hit LinkedIn or email at scale and get big results. Use me as an example, last October I booked a consultant 30 qualified meetings within 3 weeks, and an engineering consultancy firm 3 meetings, each worth 6-figures, in the first six weeks, but the industry has changed.
In my opinion, it’s changed for the better (assuming you know what you’re doing) The aforementioned consultant might have sat 30 meetings, but she only closed 7, but if your lead gen is good in the current market, you’ll only sit 14, but you’ll close 9 or 10.
People used to be a lot more willing to have a meeting, but now?
You’ll sit fewer meetings, but close more deals, assuming you know how to do it right.
So, how can you do lead gen right in 2025?
Super specific human pain points
One of our current clients is a project management consultant specialising in the manufacturing space. A year ago we could hit a pain point along the lines of ‘we save you time and money by getting X project done ahead of schedule.’
This doesn’t work anymore. Our best performer in Q2 was variations of:
You can enjoy your holiday this summer with your family, knowing that (exact project) will be completed to a high standard.
It wasn’t generic benefits like ‘saving time’, it was providing the mental clarity and the ability for the client to enjoy their family holiday without stressing about said project collapsing.
This level of personalisation does mean you can’t hit volume in the same way you could last year; you’ll likely generate fewer meetings, but you’ll close more deals.
This client has almost 50 days booked in Q3 on a £500 day rate. Why? Because we got human and truly put ourselves in our ideal customers' shoes.
Every business owner, or decision maker is a real person. They don’t wake up thinking ‘I want to save X money/time.’ They wake up thinking, ‘I need this project to be done so I can enjoy my holiday with my kids.’
People don’t stay awake at night thinking, ‘I want 30 qualified leads in 6 weeks.’ They’re thinking ‘‘I want to hire this person and build a team I’m proud of.’
I know it’s cringe, but the best lead gen right now, especially on LinkedIn, is specific and it’s empathetic to an individual's problem, not a broad benefit.
Understand longer sales cycles
It’s likely your prospect has worked with a company similar to yours before, and unfortunately, there's a good chance they’ve been burned.
I understand that you’re different and you’re not like that, but if you rush a close, or send a similar cold email/LinkedIn DM to that company, psychologically, they’re going to view you in the same light.
It’s not fair, but it’s true.
What’s worked well for us this year is:
Not selling in the first interaction
I call them ‘touch base’ messages. It’s like throwing your jab out in round 1 of a fight, you’re just letting them know you’re there, you’re setting up the knockout in the later rounds. Get in, then get out. If you throw a haymaker (cold sales pitch) in message 1, 99% of the time you’ll miss and get countered (waste a good lead).
Qualify first, make sure they have a positive opinion of you, casually end the conversation, and set a reminder in your CRM for a couple of weeks' time.
Everyone else in your prospect's inbox is selling in message 1, and they hate it. So the trust you build by not selling immediately differentiates you from everybody else vying for their business.
Worst case scenario? They don’t reply, and you can come back later and restart the process.
Consistent quality content focused on human pain points
With the way the LinkedIn algorithm works, now you’ve exchanged a few messages, they’ll start seeing your content in their feed, and assuming your content shows the problem you solve in fun, creative ways, and utilises case studies for authority, you’ll be building trust with your prospect.
People hate being told they have a problem, but if your content helps them come to the conclusion themselves, the next time you reach out, the trust, or the traditional ‘sales rapport’, will have been built.
Can you get a consistent lead flow on LinkedIn without posting content? Yes, you can. But it will be significantly fewer and much harder. You’ll need to build trust with each prospect individually; it will take longer, and you’ll lose any scale.
This is without even mentioning reply rates are always higher for accounts that post content consistently,
Retargeting campaigns
A lot of your leads won’t respond to your initial message, which is ok, don’t follow up immediately, come back in 4-6 weeks time and drop them another message related to a specific change in the industry, or something they mentioned in a recent post.
Now, when your reminder pops up in your CRM, what messages should you send? You have a few options:
Something related to your last conversation.
If they mentioned a project they were working on, ask about it. Or if they had a problem, ask how they solved it (then potentially offer your solution).
Relate it to a recent post
This is a classic for a reason; nobody ever complained that they’ve spoken about themselves too much. Link one of their recent posts to one of the problems you solve and direct the conversation.
Something stupid
Everyone in your prospects inbox will be acting ultra-professional, send a gif you think they’ll find funny based on their personality/content. Link said gif to their offer, posts etc. This makes you memorable.
I spoke earlier about treating your potential clients as real people, this does that.
One of my best ever campaigns was sending the Maverick taking his sunglasses off in Top Gun gif with the line ‘You when I send over (lead magnet) let me know if you’d like it.’
It was different, and because the lead magnet was good, we got responses. Plus we were targeting the aerospace industry, so we played into that.
If your offer is strong, and you’re good at what you do, all you need is attention and your ideal client to think you’re a good person; that’s it, that’s honestly all you need, this is what cuts through the noise.
Creative things like this work a treat.
PS. One of my favourites is sending the Eubank Jr shushing gif and relating it to one of the prospect's unpopular opinions, especially in masculine industries. Play your target audience..
Proper post-sales meeting sequences
The one meeting close is a rarity in the current market, so use that to your advantage. Even if you’re fairly certain they’d say yes, the trust you’ll build by being different is worth it.
Remember what I said before, about making sure your prospect can’t psychologically link you to a prior bad experience? Everyone has experienced a direct sales person.
I’m not saying lose control of the meeting, what I’m saying is put a second meeting in the calendar on the call. Put it for later in the week or the following one and say ‘I’m excited by the potential here, what I want to do it go away put everything we’ve spoken about into a proposal and go through my vision and the specifics for how I see this going, are you free on X or X?’
This not only gives you time to put something proper together, it builds trust with the prospect as there’s no stress or hassle on their end, and you’re not trying to push through a sale.
Across the board trust has never been lower, so we need to change the processes and customs that got us to this point, even if it wasn’t our fault.
If you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you’ve found it interesting. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter here, where I share live data from what’s been booking meetings for mid-high ticket offers for my clients. You could’ve read all of this in March. Don’t miss next month’s release!
Or if you want me to generate you some mid-high ticket qualified leads, book a time below.