Why Your Lead Generation Isn’t Working: Pick One Pathway

Imagine with me for just a moment that you want to plant a garden. So what do you do? You go out, you plow up some dirt, you drop in some seeds, you water them, and you tend to your garden every day really well. But just then, after those first couple seeds sprout on the very first day, you see a few little sprouts. You get frustrated because, well, you just don’t seem to be growing fast enough. And not all of them popped up that you thought were going to pop up. So you bring out the plow. You plow up the entire garden again and you drop in new seeds of a new vegetable to start all over.

So a month later goes by and you decide, I don’t want these peppers. I don’t want green peppers. I’ve been getting some at the store. I really haven’t liked them. And I don’t know why I planted this. So you decide I want carrots instead. So you plow up the garden, you mix in some sand, you drop in some carrot seeds, only to decide two months later that you want corn.

Now, what do you do if you keep doing this? You keep plowing up, you keep throwing in new seeds, you keep starting over. You throw in some seeds over there. You throw in some seeds over here. When it comes to the harvest, are you going to have anything? No, you’re going to get nothing at harvest time. In fact, if you planted your garden like this, or knew somebody that did, you would be like, man, they’re a gardening idiot.

The problem is. The problem is. Are you doing the same thing in your lead generation efforts for your business? In this episode, you’ll discover how to create steady and predictable revenue growth when you P.A.B.P. What I mean by that, give me just a few moments here and I’ll explain it.

Now, if you’re making less than $50,000 a month in steady and predictable revenue with at least a 20% profit on that, then I want you to really commit to listening to this entire episode, because I’ve written it just for you.

Welcome to the Digital Nomad Entrepreneur podcast. My name is Eric Dingler. I’m a full time digital nomad entrepreneur traveling around the world with my wife and our four teenagers and having an amazing experience along the way. And I keep getting asked by people, you know, wow, how do you do that? How do you set your business up to be location independent? How do you run a business as you travel full time? And so I’ve created this podcast to help people that want to have a location independent business. Whether that means you want to travel full time, maybe you want to just travel for a month or here or there on school holidays with your kids, whatever your travel looks like, this podcast is designed to help you have a location independent business.

Now, today, a few things I want to talk about real quickly. I want to give you a roadmap of this episode so you kind of know where we are. There are three things we’re going to talk about. First, the main thing, the thing that that title said that made you go, I want to listen to this. When you saw that steady and predictable revenue growth comes when you P.A.B.P., which, by the way, I have to be very careful to say, because it’s a little bit of a tongue twister, but that’s the first thing we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about that first.

Then we’re going to transition to the leadership tip of the week. And the reason I do that is because every single episode I talk about one specific leadership tip, because your leadership capacity is the capacity of your business. Your business cannot outgrow your leadership, whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a solo person, or whether you have a team. Leadership is the capacity of your business. So in every single episode, I’m going to have a leadership tip. And then at the very end, for those that are interested in the travel side of things, I’ll give you a quick travel update and then we’ll say goodbye until the next episode. So that’s kind of the roadmap here in front of us.

All right. So let’s go ahead and get started with what do I mean by P.A.B.P.? Well, quite simply, I mean, you got to pick a bloody pathway. All right? You have to pick a pathway for your business and stay in it. And by pathway specifically, I mean the pathway in which you bring in new customers. How you bringing in new customers, and not just bring in new customers, but retain current customers, increase wallet share with current customers. How do you extend that lifetime value? Because it’s going to cost you money to attract new customers. And so we want to have the longest possible and highest possible lifetime value out of those customers.

But too many of us, we do what the little bit of the extreme example I gave of the gardener at the beginning of this. That’s what so many of us do when we approach our lead generation. We do the same thing when we try to get healthy. You know, we jump from one diet to another one, one exercise routine to another. And we just keep starting things. We don’t stick with things long enough. And I’m so guilty of this. I am a chronic starter. I love starting things. I’m terrible at finishing them. I am not a natural rooter.

So when it comes to lead generation, I used to struggle with this a lot. I tried this thing, I tried that thing, and I would try multiple things at one time, because that’s what I would see other people do. And I saw these successful people doing multiple things, having multiple funnels, having multiple pathways, bringing people into the top of their funnel multiple different ways. And so I would see them and I would think, well, that’s what they’re doing and look how big they are. So I got to be doing the same thing as them.

Well, honestly, I was being an idiot. That’s not how they’re able to do it. Because the truth is they’re not doing it. Okay. It appears like they’re doing it, but they have a team behind them. We have to understand that there is way more behind what we’re seeing than what we’re aware of. So that’s why I said if you’re making less than $50,000 a month, you don’t have the capacity to be doing multiple things to bring in leads, because you haven’t mastered one of them.

So what I want to do is I want to encourage you. There are four ways, only four ways, to fill the top of your pathway. And so I’m going to share those four. I’ve talked about them in the past and I’ll talk about them again. I talk about these things during my coaching calls. I talk about these things through the OP3 accelerator. If you don’t know what that is, the three stands for one persona, one product, one pathway. Your business setup is based upon having one person with a problem. That’s the persona, one person with a problem. You sell one product to solve that person’s problem, and you have one pathway for customers to buy it.

And so today I really specifically want to focus on the pathway, and you’ve got to pick a bloody pathway and stick with it. You need some accountability. This is one of the things that I see happening the most with my groups that are going through OP3, and in any mastermind group or anything like that that I’m involved with. It’s the accountability. Because you’re starting a business because you like to start things. You are a chronic starter of things and you want to learn the right thing. You don’t want to waste time. And you’re inundated by this person’s expert opinion and that person’s, and you see this guy over there doing it, and that guy over there is saying, here’s how you make $75,000 a month with one ad, and you’re eliminated by all these things. And most of it is hyperbole. Most of it’s just exaggerated. And they’re just trying to sell you something. And you keep buying it. You keep buying these courses and books and podcasts.

Now, listen, you gotta keep learning, but it’s in what you’re learning where the power for your growth really lives. And I’m going to unpack here in a moment what it is that I learned. I had to learn that. I think you probably also need to learn it. All right. Because I’m telling you, if you get this right, you’re finally going to go, oh, progress, growth. And it’s very, very rewarding and exciting.

Now, I’m going to go over these four, the four ways that you bring people in the top of your pathway, the top of your funnel. How do you attract new leads? Because every dollar you’re ever going to make in business is going to start as a lead. How do you attract leads? Now, as I go through this, I’m going to spend a lot of time unpacking them. I’m going to share them with you quickly. If you’re struggling with which one to choose, which one is right for you, or if you’ve been trying one of these and it’s not been working for you, then go to my website and schedule a free consult. Okay, go to DNEPodcast.com. You’ll see buttons at the top, middle, all over the place, to just schedule a free consultation. Let’s jump on a Zoom call and talk about what you’ve got going on and diagnose your pathway.

All right. So what are these four, the four ways to fill the top of your pathway?

Number one is outreach. You can send cold emails, cold phone call the people. That’s the first way to do it. Cold outreach has been happening for a long time.

The second is content. You can be a content producing machine. You can be on social media. You have a blog. You have a video channel. You have a podcast, whatever it is. You can have a content strategy that creates inbound marketing. So cold outreach is all about outbound. But you could create content that brings leads to you. There’s pros and cons of both of those, but those are the first two. So you got cold outreach, content.

The next one, networking. You’ve got networking groups. This could be online. It can be in-person. There’s all kinds of ways to do networking. Free ways, free groups, paid groups. There’s all kinds, but they all lump into networking. Now, personally, side note, I think networking is the fastest way to get to your first like 15, 20, 25,000 dollars a month in recurring revenue, for sure. It’s not the best way to get to seven figures necessarily. It can for sure, but it’s not the fastest way. But if you’re just wanting to get established, then focusing on networking is a great place to be.

So the fourth and final way to fill the top of your funnel is paid ads. Paid Facebook ads, paid Google ads. There’s all kinds. Paid LinkedIn ads. You can put out paid ads.

Where we get in trouble is when we try to do content and paid ads while we’re going to networking events. And we’re spending all this time doing all these things and none of them work. So we try something new and, well, that doesn’t work. So I get a new course, and even as I’m implementing that, I get shiny, I get attracted to this shiny thing over here. I hear this and so now I’m downloading this person’s e-book and it’s just insanity. It’s absolutely insanity. And you got to stop doing this.

I can’t get over how many times I’m meeting with somebody, I’m talking to somebody or somebody in one of my groups, and they’re talking about, oh, I just downloaded this new thing, I just read this new book, and I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re getting distracted from your pathway. You pick a bloody pathway for your business and stick to it. Stick to it to the point that it’s working for you, that you’re mastering it. If you have a way for your pathway and it’s not steady and predictable revenue, it’s not the path, it’s not the way you’ve chosen.

Okay? If you’ve chosen to do content and it’s not working for you yet, the issue isn’t content. It’s that you’re no good at content yet. Get better. Get better. If you’ve tried cold outreach and it’s not working for you, well, it’s not that it doesn’t work. Why do you think there are businesses that open and build massive call centers to make outbound calls? Well, because it works. It works. If it’s not working for you, the issue isn’t that cold outreach doesn’t work. You suck at it. You’re just no good at it. Maybe you’re calling the wrong people. Maybe your script is wrong. Maybe you’re calling at the wrong times. I don’t know. You have to figure it out. You have to become a master. Stick with your bloody pathway.

Don’t try to go learn something new. Don’t try to go learn a new way. Get better at your way. If you’re choosing paid ads and your first few ads bomb, which they’re going to, don’t go try to learn a new system. Learn how to do ads better. And not just from another person, not just from somebody. Like, really dig in. You’re not doing something right. Quit trying to jump from one tactic to another tactic to another. Pick a strategy. Know the metrics that you have to measure. Measure the metrics and adjust to the outcomes you’re getting. Now, again, if you’re like, okay, I need help with this, call, like I do a consult. Let’s get on a Zoom. We’ll talk about this.

Now, I said at the beginning, a few minutes ago, I said after I share these four, I’m going to tell you what to do when you pick one. So what do you do when you pick one? How do you keep learning?

Well, here’s the thing. You got to pick a pathway and then you’ve got to master that pathway. Stop studying other pathways. Stop studying other ways to do lead generation. Pick one and study it. Master it. Then study leadership. Continue studying leadership. And very specifically, an element to leadership known as wisdom.

Okay, now, believe it or not, you can study wisdom. And what is wisdom? Wisdom is the ability to apply the right knowledge in the right way at the right time for the best possible outcomes. In other words, in a shorter way, putting the right knowledge into action. So you got to study the right knowledge. And you don’t keep jumping around. You just study the right knowledge.

If you’re trying to do paid ads and your ads are getting clicks, but nobody’s converting, then you need to study landing pages. You don’t need to go study now how to start a YouTube channel. You need to study landing pages. You need to start optimizing that. If you don’t know if it’s the landing page because your ads aren’t getting clicks, then you need to study ad creative. You need to study copywriting for ads, images for ads.

Let’s say you’re wanting to build your business on a content strategy, so you start a YouTube channel and it’s really hard to stay consistent, especially when nobody’s watching. But if you’ll just stick to it and keep doing it and get better and better and just make incremental improvements with every video. You’re not studying the YouTube platform and knowing what every single little option is. And if you are just studying that thing all the time, you’re never going to grow your business, because you’re going to go, I, this YouTube video, it didn’t work. And so now I’m going to try something else. That’s exactly what you’re going to sound like to the world. Pick a bloody pathway and stick with it, and then continue studying leadership. And then have the courage to apply it.

When you’re learning, then apply what you’re learning. Study leadership and wisdom and leverage these things. There’s an old, ancient proverb that says wisdom offers you long life in her right hand, and riches and honor in her left. She will guide you down a delightful path. All her ways are satisfying. Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her. Happy are those who hold her tightly.

Here’s some of the things that wisdom offers. Long life, riches and honor, delightful paths. All of her ways are satisfying. Happiness. I mean, do you want these things? I think you do. I do. So I have to be wise. I have to be wise. I had to put the right knowledge into action. I had to be wise. Wisdom is the ability to apply the right knowledge in the right way at the right time for the best possible outcomes. That is the definition of building an amazing, effective lead gen strategy. Applying the right knowledge. What’s the right knowledge for you? Is it going to be content, paid ads, cold outreach? What’s the right way for you? What’s the right time? What’s the right way to apply the right platform? What are the best possible outcomes you’re going after? You’re only going to get that if you continue to study a very narrow pathway. And you have to become a master of your pathway.

Stop trying to copy other people’s pathways. Use them as inspiration. But then, and I’ve talked about it in this podcast in the past, the principle behind the practice. If you can’t tell me why every single thing you’re doing is part of your pathway, if you can’t tell me why you’re doing it, the purpose behind it, why it’s effective, what would break if you did it wrong, if you can’t tell me those things, you haven’t learned your pathway, you have not studied it.

So when you go to pick the next thing to study, when you go to pick the next book to read, the next podcast, don’t worry about studying wealth. Don’t worry about studying systems and standard operating procedures. If you’re not making enough money, that’s a waste of time. Okay. You need to make sales, and the way to make sales, because that’s cash, and cash is the lifeblood of any business. The way you do that is through a solid business pathway for lead generation. What’s at the top of the funnel? What are you doing in the middle of the funnel? What are you doing at the bottom? How are you getting people that come out the bottom to bring new people into the top? Like that pathway, you’ve got to master this. And you can if you would just stay focused, if you would just stop chasing new ideas.

So the next time you’re like, oh, you know, because you want to read, I get that. Leaders are readers. We’re learners. You want to learn something? Study leadership. Study leadership. Study wisdom. At the same time, keep improving your path.

Now, if this makes sense to you, if this is at all motivating to you, if this is inspirational to you in any way, if you’re like, I get it, I want to do this, come on. You’ve been there before and look at where you are now. All right? And I’m just trying to be blunt, because I want you to succeed. I’m in your corner. I want you to be successful. But if you are struggling, if you’re just repeating the same patterns of dysfunction over and over and over, well, let’s get on a Zoom. And I’m not going to talk to you like this one on one. Okay. You can talk to people in my OP3 accelerator. The OP3 accelerator is when I take a cohort of people, a small group of people, through a 90 day accelerator where we hone in on their persona, their product, their pathway.

And when we get into their product, there’s a whole section where I give them a spreadsheet to help them maximize profitability, so they know what their profit margins are and what to tweak and adjust to increase profit. And then when we break down the persona, they’re getting to know the marketing language and what their potential customers are feeling and what they’re aspiring to, and how they can come in as a business with a message that is a bridge to get people from where they are to where they want to be.

And then we really spend a lot of time on the pathway. What’s your email magnet? How are you bringing people in at the top of your funnel? Where are you meeting people? Where are you finding them? Is it, you know, which one of the four ways is it going to be? And out of those four, which subcategory is it going to be, and what’s the next step, and the next step? And we look at the system and we add metrics and measurements. We put all that together, because at the end of those 90 days, if you know your persona, your product, your pathway, that’s a profitable business.

And so at the end of those 90 days, if people don’t have a profitable business plan, I keep working with them one on one until they do. And then 90 days after they launch or implement their OP3 strategy, if they haven’t made the money back that they invested to get into OP3, I keep working with them until they do. It’s a no lose. You get your money back, plus a whole lot more, because it’s just business one on one. It’s the foundation. And then I help hold you accountable in weekly calls, and I’m not afraid to call out, say, that’s not what you said you were going to do. You said you were going to do that. Yeah, I know, Eric. And I’m like, I know, you know.

And again, I don’t talk in this tone of voice. I’m a lot more kind and gentle, and I’ll be like, really? So, well, let me ask, why is it you’re wanting to choose that now over what you said a couple of weeks ago? Because I know a couple weeks ago you said you wanted to do this, now you want to do this. What’s the reason behind that? So I talk like that. Okay, that’s a little bit more. But this here, I’m trying to inspire, I’m trying to move. I’m trying to get you to feel something. I’m trying to get you to go, I’m sick and tired of my business not getting the results I want it to get. I’m going to get help. And if you don’t want to get it from me, find somebody else. Get yourself a coach. Get some accountability.

And if you’re listening, you’re like, this is good, this is helpful, I like this, do me a favor, share this. Share it on your social. Say, listen, I just listened to this guy, and if you’ve been struggling in your business getting leads, listen to this one episode of his podcast. Link to it, tag me in it. I’ll be eternally grateful. And I know it’s going to take a couple of minutes, you got to find the link, and how do I tag you, and I know it’s a hassle. But come on, just take one step. Do it. Help somebody else. Help somebody else, and say thank you to me by promoting that out that way.

And then make sure you leave the review and subscribe, and if you’re on Spotify, leave a comment, which is kind of cool that you can do that now. But do yourself the biggest favor and schedule a call. Let’s spend a quick couple of minutes on a Zoom call, diagnose your business. I’ll give you some tips and some pointers and help you out. And you know, it’s free. It’s a free call. It’s a free Zoom call. Let’s get it done. Go to the website, DNEPodcast.com, and schedule a free consultation.

And if you’re interested, let me know. I’m starting, I start three cohorts every few months. And so I’ve got one here coming up real soon. When you’re listening to this, I got one coming up real soon. So reach out and let me know that you’re interested in more about the OP3 accelerator.

All right. So, leadership tip of the week. Remember, you need to be studying leadership. This is the capacity of your business. Your business cannot grow beyond your leadership capacity. And this week’s leadership tip of the week, this week’s leadership axiom, is this: trust is built in the absence of secrets. Trust is built in the absence of secrets. Don’t keep secrets from the people you do business with. Don’t keep secrets from your team. If you’re married, don’t keep secrets from your spouse. Trust is built in the absence of secrets.

We think that people should just trust us, and we don’t have to share everything. Okay. Now, there may be things that are private, and that’s okay. You don’t need to share private things. There may be things that are sensitive. I’m not saying share those. I’m saying trust is built in the absence of secrets. Don’t have secrets, okay? You can have private things for sure. You can have sensitive things. But secrets, man, they’re filler to the culture of a company. And you want to have trust in your team. And so trust is built in the absence of secrets.

Well, travel update time. Man, I’m telling you right now, since my last update, we have made it into Liverpool, and we’re going to be here for two months. So far I’m in a phenomenal coworking space. Maybe I’ll talk about that more in a future podcast. I’m sure I will. This is a great coworking space. But first I wanted to talk real quickly, the main thing is how we got here from Belfast.

So we were in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and there’s a ferry that comes across the Irish Sea here into Liverpool, right into Liverpool. And this ferry, it’s about 8 hours. And you can take it during the day or you take it through the night, and they’ve got cabins. It’s like a mini cruise ship. They had a movie theater, an arcade, a restaurant, a cafe, a bar, lots of areas to sit in, decks. It was really nice, super clean. The staff were super friendly. You can bring your car across if you have a vehicle. We didn’t do that. They have a pet area. They have cabins you can rent, which obviously if you were coming over in the night, you might want that. And it’s not really that expensive at all.

We decided to come over during the day, so we caught the ferry in the morning. It was really easy to get on and we had a great time crossing over. We had a couple of decks of cards and we sat around and played all new card games. Well, we played Crazy Eights for a little bit, that’s a game we play the best. But we decided to try new games. So we discovered a game called 31, Kings in the Corner, I don’t know, there’s a few others, and I have a list on my phone of what they are, and we’ve been playing them for the last two weeks.

It was interesting, last night my wife was saying that that trip was a turning point for us. And I can’t remember the word she used. She didn’t use turning point. Benchmark, I don’t know. But it was significant, because it’s turned us into a card playing family the last couple of weeks. So we’ve been playing a lot of cards. Two of the kids will play, or I’ll play with one of the kids. It’s not always the six of us, but it’s been a lot of fun.

So anyway, that’s not the point. The card games isn’t the point. The point is, if you ever are in a situation where you can take the ferry between Belfast, Northern Ireland and Liverpool, England, take it, it’s great. You could take it during the night. We chose not to because it leaves kind of a late time. And so you’re going to be up later than probably normal. But then it’s only 8 hours. So by the time you get on and the boat gets underway and the announcements are all done and the safety, that’s a little bit of time. And they start making announcements before arriving, and you got to be out of your cabin like a half hour before it pulls into the dock, so you don’t even get the whole 8 hours in. And we were just like, we’re going to get like 3 hours of sleep, 4 hours of sleep, especially if you want to save time to get the meals, if you want to have dinner or breakfast. And so we were just like, we don’t want to do that. So we came over during the day. It was not expensive. And all of us said it was one of our favorite travel days, super low key, super free of stress. Great way to travel.

If you’d like to know more about the travel side of what we’re doing, the family side, how we teach our kids, all that kind of stuff, my wife talks about that. She has a podcast, the Digital Nomad Family podcast. Obviously I’ve got this Digital Nomad Entrepreneur podcast where I talk about the location independent business side of it, and my wife covers everything else. It’s an independent lifestyle, you know, how we find where we live, how we teach our kids, what we do. She shares activities. She’s got a bunch of stuff over there. So if that’s your thing, definitely check out my wife’s podcast. Follow us on Instagram, Family of Dash as well.

There we are. We’ve reached the end of another episode, episode 38. Gosh, that’s exciting. I’m loving doing this. Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to reading your reviews, comments, emails, meeting with some of you one on one on Zoom, answering questions about OP3. I just thank you. I’m looking forward to all of those things. Thank you for sharing this. And I’ll see you next episode. Until then, chase the big dream, lead with courage, and safe travels.

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