LEADS

Before you go out hunting for leads, get your house in order

There’s a pattern that we at Marketing de Bolsillo have seen time and time again in our conversations with Colombian entrepreneurs.

There’s a pattern that we at Marketing de Bolsillo have seen time and time again in our conversations with Colombian entrepreneurs.

They come with a specific, urgent, almost desperate complaint.

But when you start to scratch the surface, what lies beneath is something completely different.

The pain they bring

Over the past few weeks, the Marketing de Bolsillo team and I have sat down with more than seven entrepreneurs. Different businesses, different industries, different sizes. But they all came to us with the same line:

"We aren't generating enough leads to close deals."

It's a legitimate concern. Without leads, there's no pipeline. Without a pipeline, there are no sales. Without sales, there's no business.

The problem is that this concern, valid as it is, often masks something deeper.

What emerges when you dig deeper

As the conversation progresses and people start asking the right questions, the whole picture changes.

It's not that the market isn't responding. It's not that the product is bad. What happens, almost always, is this:

✗ They don’t have a defined acquisition channel. They’ve tried Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Ads, trade shows, referrals… all at the same time, without a clear idea of what their main focus should be.

✗ They’ve dabbled in several tactics at once and haven’t let them develop. Marketing takes time to bear fruit. Changing your strategy every three weeks is like watering a plant one day and pulling it up the next.

✗ There is no clear person in charge of meeting the targets. If everyone is responsible for the lead generation process, in practice, no one is.

✗ There’s a real lack of understanding when it comes to marketing. And that’s not a judgment call—it’s an understandable reality in small teams where everyone wears many hats.

✗ They confuse demand generation with lead generation. These are different processes with different objectives and different timelines. Mixing them up leads to frustration.

✗ They have never defined their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) or Buyer Persona. They intuitively know who they’re selling to, but that has never been captured in a document to guide the team’s decisions.

✗ They lack clear systems for measuring what works. They take action without making the results visible. Without data, everything is based on intuition, and intuition eventually runs out.

The actual diagnosis

The problem isn't a lack of leads. The problem is that we're trying to build a growth engine on a foundation that doesn't yet exist.

It's like trying to start an engine without having assembled it first. The energy is there, the motivation is there, but the parts aren't in place.

Starting a digital project without proper planning will always end up being a headache for the investor.

“Tidy up the house” first

When we at Marketing de Bolsillo reach this point in the conversation, the decision is clear, even if the client finds it hard to accept at first: we need to take a little more time in the first stage.

That process is called getting organized. And when clients go through it, they see the value.

What is it?

Focusing on the basics. Translating what makes sense for that particular business into concrete documents. Sharing that information internally so that all employees share a single vision.

To be defined:

→ What is the primary acquisition channel, and why?
→ Who is the ideal customer, including their name, job title, industry, pain points, and motivations.
→ What metric defines the success of each initiative.
→ Who is responsible for delivering the results and how they will be held accountable.
→ What is the difference between generating demand and capturing leads, and what stage is the business at today?

Only after that is in place does it start running.

Why does this order work?

Because execution without clarity is costly. It costs time, money, and the team's energy.

When you have a clear understanding of your customers, your messaging improves. When you have a defined channel, your investment yields better results. When there is a clear point of contact, things get done. When you have measurement systems in place, you learn and adjust rather than repeating the same mistakes.

Entrepreneurs who go through this process often describe the same feeling: they feel that, for the first time, they are doing things in the right order, and that gives them a sense of peace of mind they didn't have before—even if the results haven't come in yet.

The most common mistake

The most common mistake isn't failing to generate leads. It's confusing urgency with priority.

The immediate need says: I need leads now. The priority, once you fully understand the situation, says: I need clarity before I can generate leads in a sustainable way.

Rushing into action without proper planning doesn't speed up the process. It slows it down. Because every misguided move costs time and money that you'll have to make up for later.

If your business is struggling to generate leads and you feel like nothing is working, the question you should ask yourself before trying a new tactic is this: Is everything in order?

If the answer is no, that's where the work needs to be done first.

Want to know where your business stands? At Marketing de Bolsillo, we work with Colombian small and medium-sized businesses to get things in order before scaling up. Contact us.