Lies, Lies, and Damn Lies.

Recently Dan McDade, CEO of PointClear, asked me to contribute to an article in his blog, Viewpoint, The Truth about Lead Generation.  The article was entitled:  Lead Generation Lies That are Wreaking Havoc with Your Sales.   Being an over-achiever, I gave him more than he asked for.  He printed 5 of my lies, plus some great ones fromArdath Albee | Marketing Interactions, Craig Rosenberg | The Funnelholic, Paul Gillin | Paul Gillen Blog, Ginger Conlon | DMNews, and Jamie Turner | 60 Second Communications.  Here is my full list of lies:

1. Direct marketing by mail is dead. 
2. From an average salesperson:  “Give me more leads and I’ll be happy.”  (What the salesperson meant is:  “Give me more qualified leads.”)
3. Marketing manager to the direct marketing agency:  “Don’t worry about the list for the mailing.  I’ve got a list we can use.”
4. Telemarketing doesn’t work.  I get telemarketing calls every night and I hate ‘em.
5. Trade shows don’t find buyers.
6. Says the branding agency: “We can do direct marketing.  We did a mailing for a client last year.”
7. We don’t need an offer in our direct mailing.
8. As long as we’re mailing to these people, let’s pitch these other three products at the same time.
9. Our products are so good, we don’t need leads.
10. Salespeople don’t like or need sales leads.
11. My kid builds websites at college; she can build a great site for you.
12. My kid builds websites at college; he can SEO your site.
13. We don’t need a marketing plan.  I’ll just do what we did last year.
14. Sales are down; guess we need sales training.
15. Pay-for-click doesn’t work. 
16. We tried PR last year and it didn’t work.
17. I tried advertising once and it didn’t work.
18. Salespeople won’t follow up sales leads.
19. Business reply cards in direct mail don’t work.
20. We don’t care about using any other promotion channels; our buyers are all on-line.
21. Our telemarketing department can report to the VP of sales.
22. We can just use a toll number in our ads; nobody cares about toll free numbers any more.
23. We don’t ask qualifying questions on our web form; I hate them.
24. We don’t need a ‘contact us’ form on our website; people can email us.
25. I’ve been in sales for 20 years and never taken a training class, and I’m doing OK.
26. Those aren’t real buyers; they didn’t give me their telephone number.
27. Marketing is a variable expense; cut it and we’ll never miss it.
28. Anyone can write a PR release. 
29. Those leads are a month old; they’ve already bought.
30. As a CEO gave a tour of his sales department he was heard to say: “And this is our over-head department.”

 Got any thoughts you want to add?