User's Guide -- Introduction

The Lead Generator is a unique Web-based service that is designed to provide sales and marketing personnel with pre-qualified sales leads. The Lead Generator can help you increase your sales reliably and inexpensively by putting you in touch with other users who need your product or service -- and who are ready, willing and able to buy -- all from the convenience of your PC.

In addition, The Lead Generator can also provide purchasing managers, controllers, operations personnel, and corporate support staff with a powerful means of reducing costs and saving time by identifying multiple vendors who will compete for their business on the basis of price, quality and service.

The Lead Generator, therefore, is for companies that want to increase their sales and reduce their costs. It is for companies that want to improve the quantity and quality of incoming business, and that want to improve their efficiency, profitability and customer satisfaction.

In short, The Lead Generator can help your business grow.

Purpose of the User's Guide

The purpose of this User's Guide is to help you learn to how to use The Lead Generator quickly and effectively, and how to get the most out of your investment in the service.

The User's Guide is divided into four parts:

1. Introduction
2. Information for New Users
3. How To Search For Sales Leads (and other Marketing Applications of The Lead Generator)
4. How To Search for Purchasing Opportunities and Solve Problems

The Overview, or Section 1, which you are reading now, describes how The Lead Generator works, and some of the important issues involved in effective usage.

Section 2 describes the "mechanics" of using The Lead Generator.

Section 3 describes Sales and Marketing applications of The Lead Generator and how it can be used to identify qualified prospects for your products.

Section 4 describes how to use The Lead Generator to save time, save money and improve quality on purchased goods and services, as well as broader uses of the system for solving a wide variety of common business problems.

How The Lead Generator Works

As you probably already know, The Lead Generator works because in order for you to use it to identify and contact prospects who need your product or service, you (or someone in your company,) has to have previously put into the data base what it is that your company needs to buy.

In other words, if your company "posts" its Needs (i.e. puts them into the common Lead Generator data base,) then you will be permitted to "search" the data base for prospects -- other users who have an explicit need for your products and services.

And when you've found a prospect, the system then lets you contact him or her via a convenient, integrated messaging system. In this way, you can discuss their application and the benefits of your offering without ever leaving your office.

On the other hand, though, if your company doesn't post its needs -- keeping them updated, and responding to solicitations on the system from potential vendors -- then your access privileges will be blocked.

That is, if you don't put INTO the data base what your company needs to buy, then you cannot get leads OUT of the system.

This is how The Lead Generator maintains a constant supply of highly qualified sales leads, putting you in direct contact with the decision makers who are responsible for purchasing your product or service. It also, however, makes it a powerful buying tool, as well, enabling your company to leverage its buying power to increase its sales.

Benefits of The Lead Generator

Besides its clear advantages for sales and marketing organizations to increase sales and grow revenue, The Lead Generator also benefits the purchasing manager, operations staff, and corporate support personnel who are responsible for the specification and purchasing of raw materials and other goods and services.

This is because you can use The Lead Generator to easily identify multiple vendors who will compete for your business on the basis of features, price, quality and service. You can publish requests for quote (RFQs) to solicit formal bids on complex projects. Or you can publish requests for proposals (RFPs,) on problems for which the solutions aren't even known. You can implement fair procurement rules by widely and/or anonymously distributing information on your needs. And you can save hundreds of hours by pre-qualifying vendors online, rather than meeting them face-to-face before you know if it's worth the investment of your time in a meeting.

But perhaps most importantly, by posting your company's needs on the system, you insure that your sales and marketing personnel can get ongoing access to The Lead Generator's data base of pre-qualified sales leads. This means that purchasing department is contributing to sales growth -- rather than just being a "cost center."

So you save time, save money, and create sales.

Summary

In summary, The Lead Generator is a powerful tool for generating sales and reducing costs. As an online service, it provides you with access to decision makers from around town, or around the world. And it's available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to grow your business.

The key to the system is that its use is a kind of partnership between your purchasing department and your sales department, because someone in your company must put in your company's needs in order for you to be able to query the data base for leads.

But once you set up the process -- and actively use the system to make contacts -- the leads you will get from the system will be better than any leads you've ever seen -- not like non-responsive names on a mailing list, or the waste in an ad. The Lead Generator connects you with real prospects who really need what you have to sell -- and who are ready, willing and able to buy it.

That's The Lead Generator. And more!