From Impossible To Inevitable

Part IICreate Predictable Pipeline

The Painful Truth: Overnight success is a fairy tale.

Introduction: Lead Generation Absolves Many Sins

You can have the best product, investors, or sales process, but without predictable ways to fill your revenue or sales pipeline, you're going to struggle. Predictable lead generation is the lever to creating hypergrowth. And it's more than throwing marketing campaigns online or on billboards, cold calling, or pumping out free stuff to give away.

Many aspiring and first-time founders have the idea that “if we just create an amazing thing [app, video, ebook, blog post …], it'll catch fire online and we'll be inundated with people excited to follow us or buy from us.” This works just often enough to create the fairy tale for everyone else. Just like the lottery.

Without predictable ways to fill your pipeline, you're going to struggle.

Assuming you're not a VC, how many people do you personally know that had a true overnight or viral success—and could keep it going? The Reality Distortion Field we live in now—being inundated in social media about quick-results stories—makes it seem more common than it is, because it's just the kind of story that makes the rounds. The usual story of success, of working for years slowly building up an audience or business, baby step by baby step, is much more boring. “Exciting” plays better than “sustainable.” ...