Why B2B Lead Generation Is Different from B2C (and What to Do Instead)

B2B lead generation (finding and attracting corporate clients) works differently from B2C lead generation (finding individual customers) in almost every way that matters. If you’ve been spending hours creating content or using B2C marketing tactics to try and win business from organisations… and wondering why it’s not working? The approach is the problem – not you.

This article explains the key differences between B2B and B2C lead generation, why B2C tactics backfire within a corporate context and what you need to do instead to generate qualified corporate leads.

What is the difference between B2B and B2C lead generation?

B2C lead generation is the process of attracting individuals to buy from you. It relies on volume: reaching a large number of people, converting a small percentage, and making that percentage profitable through relatively quick sales cycles.
We often see B2C lead generation referred to as a ‘funnel’, specifically designed to attract a high volume of leads that then, through a process of free content (such as newsletters / webinars / launches) are whittled down into a tiny percentage (1-2%) who become buyers.

B2B lead generation is the process of attracting organisations to buy from you. It relies on relationships and relevance: reaching a smaller number of the right people, earning their trust over a longer period, and converting at much higher contract values.

I teach the ‘Pyramid Method’ when it comes to B2B lead generation; focusing on specifically identifying, targeting and approaching a small number of prospects that convert into qualified sales calls and land corporate contracts more effectively. Typically, my clients convert over 75% of their leads into corporate sales; a much higher percentage than B2C!

That means that the differences between the approaches are not subtle; they change everything. The platforms you use, the content you create, the type of sales conversations you have and the prices you’re able to charge for the level of experience you have and transformation that you provide.

For coaches, consultants, trainers, and done-for-you service providers making the switch from individual clients to corporate clients, these lead generation distinctions are the most important thing to understand before starting any other part of your sales process.

Why do B2C lead generation tactics fail for corporate sales?

Most service providers who struggle to get corporate clients are not doing anything wrong. They’re usually doing the ‘right’ things… just for the wrong market. Remember, B2C lead generation typically looks like;

1. Build a large social media presence and following
2. Post valuable content consistently to stay top of mind 
3. Create a ‘lead magnet funnel’ where you give a resource free of charge in exchange for a valid email address (also known as an ‘ethical bribe’)
4. Use regular content (including webinars / podcast / videos / newsletters) to build trust
5. Use a selling ‘trigger’ (usually as part of a launch) to convert the 1-2% of buyers who are ready to purchase at the time of your sales period.

When you apply this to corporate sales, we see several issues occur;

The audience mismatch:

Corporate decision makers, including HR Directors, Heads of L&D (Learning and Development), and senior leaders, are not scrolling the LinkedIn newsfeed, hoping that the right coach / consultant or trainer will ‘pop up’. This means that they’re significantly less likely to see your content marketing – or ever know that you exist

The content mismatch:
B2C content is designed to create an emotional connection and build a personal relationship at scale. Corporate buyers aren’t looking for that. They need to know you understand their specific business problem, that you’ve got the relevant experience to solve the problem and that you’ve got the skill to deliver the transformation required. This means that they’re not interested in a ‘rags to riches’ story; instead, they focus on real skill and expertise.

Corporate buyers are also much less likely to a) download a free lead magnet and b) stick through the ‘lead sequence’ of emails that usually follow in the B2C world. These are busy corporate decision-makers who don’t have time to read a five-part welcome sequence and who only want to see relevant, specific messaging so that they can quickly assess whether or not a sales call will be useful right now.

The decision-making mismatch:
An individual decides to buy for themselves and the problems that they personally face (along with the disposable income that they’re willing to spend on solving that problem / achieving a specific goal.)

A corporate decision-maker is usually buying on behalf of the organisation – which means that they’re much more focused on commercial problems that teams will face, rather than their personal interests. Your lead generation approach needs to factor in that the corporate decision-makers you talk to, will be making decisions that aren’t solely about themselves – and that they’ll likely have larger budgets and expect a significant level of impact / transformation from any engagement.

A corporate decision-maker also might not be the only person involved in the decision-making process which means that your lead generation process has to account for the fact that you’ll often have to understand the commercial priorities of other key decision-makers within the business too.

What does B2B lead generation actually look like for coaches, consultants and trainers?

The great news is that B2B lead generation for coaches, consultants, speakers, trainers and done-for-you service providers doesn’t include:

• Creating tons of free content
• Showing up on social media
• Complex tech funnels (and significant spend on tech platforms!)

Instead, it’s focused on:

Having clarity on the problem you solve: Before you generate a single lead, you need to be able to describe the business problem you solve in language that a corporate buyer would use in their own internal meetings. Not vague / big statements like; “I help leaders unlock their potential.” Something super specific and focused like: “I work with newly promoted senior leaders to reduce the performance dip that typically happens in the first six months of a new role.” Without having clarity, your lead generation message will be vague or broad – and won’t lead to good response rates.

Doing direct outreach to the right people: Proactive outreach is by far the most effective method of lead generation. Real direct (proactive) outreach can be done in a variety of ways but my clients see the most success using LinkedIn or cold email outreach.
Before you think ‘But Jess, HR Directors hate getting cold emails because they post about it on LinkedIn all the time…’ let’s address it.
Everyone hates outreach that:

• Isn’t specifically targeted to them.
• Isn’t relevant to them.

The main focus with best-practice outreach is always setting the goal to book conversations, not pitch. And if your cold outreach system is currently converting into fewer than five sales calls per month? Then check out Cold Email Outreach Conversion here where you’ll learn the exact cold email outreach strategy and get access to the proven templates that my clients have used for the last ten years to successfully book sales calls with qualified leads month after month.

Using referrals and network activation techniques: In B2B sales, your existing network can be your most powerful lead generation tool – if you know how to leverage and convert it consultatively. 

This is the most common way that I see coaches / consultants building their business at the beginning – and referrals can be really great for initial cashflow (particularly because those referring you often know the quality of your work and will happily make introductions!) However, it also comes with risks like;

• Relying on referrals and not putting any time / energy into cold lead generation… so when your referrals run out, you are left without a sales pipeline.
• Getting the introductions but not knowing how to run a sales call effectively so each call ends up being a ‘coffee + catch-up chat’ rather than a mutually beneficial sales call where you can win new business.
• Referrals aren’t predictable or scalable which means that you can easily experience droughts and panic in your sales pipeline because you haven’t been able to put a clear outreach process in place that helps you book sales calls with qualified cold leads every month.

None of these factors mean that referrals aren’t useful – but coaching / consulting businesses based largely on referrals often struggle with sales after 6-12 months and then find themselves in a panicked period where they have to generate cold leads to survive. To avoid that, make sure you put a best-practice outreach process in place early so that you can build and convert cold leads on demand.

(And if you don’t know how to do best-practice cold outreach, check out Cold Email Outreach Conversion now where you’ll learn the exact cold email outreach strategy that thousands of my clients have used to successfully book sales calls with qualified corporate leads every month!)

Consistent follow-up: Did you know that over 80% of your responses from lead generation will come after the third follow up? And yet most coaches and consultants will send 1-2 messages, not get a response and assume that the lead is ‘useless’. 

Best practice proactive outreach is about creating the right process so that your outreach helps cold leads to:

• Trust you and understand your credibility in the market
• Want to book a sales call with you 

But these decision-makers are busy which means that they often won’t reply to your first outreach email or message. Having a clear, proven follow up plan that is courteous and consistent works really well… and courteous and consistent doesn’t mean sending follow up messages that read as:

“Guess you don’t want to help new managers to manage their teams well”

“You haven’t responded to any of my other emails so you’re missing out on….”

“Clearly [COMPANY] doesn’t take supporting neurodivergent staff seriously”

(So if you’ve experienced that or been taught it? It’s not best practice and will not work to convert cold leads into signed corporate contracts)

Careful content builds credibility:
Passive lead generation does exist in the B2B sales space but it should only be used by those who already have a cold outreach approach that is working. That’s because passive visibility (such as being featured and proactively marketed by The Expert Services Directory or creating credibility content) can help you build brand awareness and visibility with corporate contacts but you won’t always have control over the timing of those leads coming in; the same as we experience with referrals.

What is the biggest mistake people make when switching from B2C to B2B lead generation?

The most common mistake is judging lead generation by the wrong success marker. When someone moves from individual clients to corporate ones, they often compare the speed and feedback they got from B2C marketing (instant likes on their posts, quick comments from other providers) with the seemingly slower, quieter nature of B2B outreach and conclude that it’s ‘not working’.

It is working. But it works differently and the success markers look very different.

B2B lead generation is quieter on the surface but much louder in terms of results. You’ll get far fewer ‘likes’ on social media… but the conversations are worth significantly more. In fact, the average B2B sale in the UK is worth £10,000 … five times as much as the average B2C sale (and with far less work attached!) The core focus with B2B lead generation is to book sales calls with qualified leads who have autonomy over budget inside their organisation so that you can convert the sales call into a paid contract.

Whereas B2C marketing isn’t designed to book sales calls that convert into high value contracts. In fact, B2C marketing is usually designed to take the viewer to another piece of content / get their email address / enter them into a funnel… which means that the sale is delayed further and worth less than B2B deals.

The other common mistake is assuming that content creation will generate sales conversations in the B2B space. It won’t. 

Decision-makers inside corporate organisations do not have time to scroll the LinkedIn newsfeed and hope that they’ll find the right coach / consultant for their organisation. Instead, they’re monitoring their inbox for outreach from credible providers, asking for referrals from colleagues or using resources like The Expert Services Directory to find credible suppliers. 

If you’re primarily focusing your lead generation efforts on content creation for corporates and not booking sales calls? That’s to be expected. Because content is not a main marketing method to attract corporate clients. 

Best practice direct / proactive outreach and network activation will always outperform content… so make sure you focus your efforts accordingly.

Where do I start with B2B lead generation?

If you want to get started with best practice B2B lead generation (meaning lead generation that turns cold contacts into booked sales calls with qualified leads) then you’ll need to focus on

1. Creating a target plan of organisations that you want to approach and book qualified sales calls with. It’s best to identiy 10-20 companies that fit the profile of an organisation that you want to work with.
2. Find the right decision-makers at each organisation. Remember that it’s important to have multiple internal champions within each organisation so you are able to identify more than one decision-maker in each.
3. Create a best-practice lead generation message that focuses on booking sales calls, rather than pitching.
4. Have a clear follow up strategy so that you’re supporting busy decision-makers who may forget about your initial message and converting them into sales calls.
5. Track your metrics and results, remembering that sales calls are your most important metric. 

After one month, if you have not booked five sales calls with qualified decision-makers, you will need to troubleshoot your outreach strategy to understand which part(s) are not working effectively. 

Alternatively, if you want to swipe the exact strategy that thousands of my clients have used to successfully book qualified sales calls with cold corporate leads, then click here to check out Cold Email Outreach Conversion where you will get access to:

• The exact email outreach strategy that thousands of clients have used in less than two hours per week to generate qualified sales calls with corporate decision-makers so that you spend less time procrastinating and more time hooking sales calls. 
• Customisable email templates that are already proven to work in over 15 countries so that you can use high-conversion email outreach templates with confidence and convert more cold leads into qualified sales calls.
• The exact targeting and identication strategy you need to be able to identify the right organisations and decision-makers so that your outreach is successful at converting cold leads into qualified sales calls each month.
• A clear metrics and troubleshooting guide so that you know exactly how to monitor your outreach strategy and how to make it more effective each year.

Plus, you’ll even get my proven objection handling guide which will give you customisable responses for each of the main six objections (including ‘We’re already using another provider’ and ‘We don’t have budget for that right now’) so that you can build strong relationships and convert more cold leads into qualified sales calls and signed corporate contracts!

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Jess Lorimer is the founder of Selling to Corporate® and has helped over 20,000 coaches, consultants, speakers, trainers, and service providers across 17 countries win corporate contracts. She is a TEDx speaker and the host of the Selling to Corporate® podcast.