To make sure that you are best prepared for getting an outrageous number of leads flooding to your business, you need to do some of your own homework first.

A big part of getting truckloads of leads for your business is about being prepared and doing some initial upfront research. Without the research, you will be lost and you’ll be like the commander going into war not knowing anything about his enemy. And then your chance for success will be very much reduced.

For example, listen to what Sun Tsu, the ancient commander, who defined modern day warfare more than 2000 years ago, had to say:

“If you know the enemy, and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you know yourself, but not your enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Sun Tsu - The Art Of War, 512 BC

Wise words from a wise man indeed…

Therefore, it’s evident that you really need to know your own business, as well as having a good handle on your competitors, to be able to win the game of business.

That’s why I’ve developed a very simple, yet effective system that you can use for generating so many leads, you seriously won’t know what to do with them all.

There are six steps that you MUST follow before implementing any of the lead generation strategies. These steps will help you get into a position where you have all the necessary information you will need to be able to run lead generation projects that produce REAL results. At first you may wonder whether it’s really worth the effort going through all these steps, but as you go through them, you will start to realize the significance of each step. Here they are:

1. Know Yourself First
2. Know Your Enemy Next
3. Pick Your Target Market
4. Solve The Needs, Wants, Frustrations Or Problems For Your Target Market
5. Create Your Own Customer Purchasing Benefit
6. Create Your Unique Market Message

Here’s an explanation of the first step in detail.

1. Know Yourself First
If you look at all the super successful people in the world today, you’ll find that all of them have at least one thing in common…

They’re all extremely passionate about what they do.

As I’m writing this, I’m reminded of a documentary I watched not too long ago. It was about an old French diver from Corsico, named Marien Poggi, who was one of the last fifteen licensed red coral hunters in the world. Now, if you’re like me, you probably won’t know too much about red coral, but this stuff is extremely hard to find. That also means that it’s extremely valuable. And maybe you’re thinking, that’s why Mr. Poggi is so passionate about his occupation.

But think again…

Diving for red coral is no simple task. Apparently, if you’re a very good diver, you might find a bit of red coral once every month! And for each dive you make, it takes about an hour and a half to come back up to the surface to avoid decompression sickness.

Just imagine how grueling it would be to go down multiple times each month, and only get rewarded once, or maybe twice, if you’re lucky. So, you’d have to be pretty passionate about it if that’s what you wanted to do with your life, day in, day out.

At the end of the documentary, Marien Poggie said something that I will never forget:

“The secret is passion. Great passion.

It’s the passion that makes you keep going.”

The story of Marien Poggi illustrates that, when you follow your passion, magical things happen and you really become unstoppable. This is clearly evident when we look at the most wealthy people on earth as well. And, if we can learn anything from the rich and successful, we’d know that it would be foolish to want to do anything that’s not in alignment with our true passions.

Now, some people don’t really know what they are passionate about, and simply drift through life being satisfied with mediocre results. But I know that you are not one of those people. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this book!

And then there are some people around who know exactly what they want and are also very passionate about what they want. These are the successful ones. But if you’re not really sure whether you are living out your passion, or what kind of products and services in your business you are passionate about, I’ve got a very simple exercise that will help you out. There are only four steps…

1. First, write down a list of all the things you absolutely love doing. Don’t stop writing until you have a list of at least 50 things. Don’t worry about what goes on the list. Simply write down whatever comes to mind.

2. Next, write down a list of all the things you absolutely love giving to people. Once again, don’t stop writing until you have a list of at least 50 things.

Once you are done, prioritize each of the lists, placing the things you love doing and giving most at the top.

Then comes the fun part…

3. To help you figure out what kind of products and services you should market, or what kind of business you should be in, simply start combining the items from the first list with items on the second list.

For example, say your first entry on your first was “playing the piano”. And the first entry on your second list was “to give knowledge (teach)”. If you take these two entries, and combine them, you might end up with something like this.

“Playing the piano while giving people knowledge.”

Obviously then, a natural career option for you would be to teach people how to play the piano, while playing the piano yourself. That way, you can do something you enjoy, while at the same time providing something of value to someone else – value that they would be more than willing to pay for.

And what is more, because you’ll enjoy doing it so much, you won’t have any problems becoming extremely knowledgeable in your field. And that will make you even more valuable to your clients. Hence, you’ll be able to charge even more. And that’s how you become successful!

But there is one more ingredient that you need to ad. It’s no use (at least for the short term) to go and do something that you are passionate about, but don’t have any experience or strengths in. I mention that’s it’s no use for the short term, because you can always build up experience and strength over time. But we are concerned with where you are at now. So, for each of the combinations on your list, ask yourself whether you or your company have some real strength or experience in that particular area. If not, perhaps this new area could be something you work on in the mean time while you focus on other options that you are perhaps a bit less passionate about, but where you have a significant strength that you can capitalize on in the market.

I hope that you can you see how, using your passion and your strengths in your business, can end up being very profitable indeed.

But what if you already have a business and you’re already marketing and selling products that you’re not sure whether you are passionate about?

Well, here’s what you do. Make a list of all the products and services that you are currently providing. Now, take a look at each one of them and rate them on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 meaning you are most passionate about the product of service and 1 meaning you are least passionate about the product or service. Then, simply rewrite the list placing the products and services you’re most passionate about at the top and the ones you’re least passionate about at the bottom. Once again, make sure that you have the necessary strengths and experience to back up each of your options.

This will become your priority list for applying each of the lead generation strategies later on, once you’re ready. If you do this exercise, you will find that everything else you’ll need to do to market your products and services will come to you very easily and naturally.

But what if you’re new in business, just starting out, and you don’t have any products or services yet? Well, you are then in a great position to create or find products and services that are in line with what you are really passionate about.

But before you go ahead and design totally new products and services, or even promote your existing products and services, you need to do one thing…

You first need to find out what products and services related to your passion are already out there.

This is what Sun Tsu would have called your “enemy”!

The next section shows you exactly:

• Who else is operating in your market
• What kind of opportunities there are for you and your business, and
• How you can position yourself and your business so that you’ll get the best possible leverage for your efforts.