What works today in B2B lead generation?

How we used to do it...

The Glengarry Leads 

Sellers love David Mamet’s 1983 play Glengarry Glen Ross.

We can all recognise the individualism, the egos, the fear of failure (“Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired”) the macho sales leaders and the skulduggery - but the unmentionable plot hole is that head office actually had a stack of qualified leads worth fighting over in the first place!

Lead quality and volume are marketing’s responsibility, and they have quotas to meet too - so after many years as a seller I grew to be quite mistrustful of anything given to me as “a lead”.  Glengarry leads are a salesperson’s sardonic euphemism for something that you daren’t dream of; you’re going to have to find them yourself.

The evolution of lead generation

- In the 1980s depicted in the play, sales agencies would have qualified buyer interest through inbound enquiry; probably mailed-in postcard responses to a magazine ad or competition before passing them to a hungry rep.

- In the 1990s Sales teams used paper directories and the earliest CRM databases to manually track leads and prospects. This led to the rise of the call centre; the industrialisation of conversation, and labour arbitrage led to giant offshore call factories which poisoned the well and turned a whole generation off answering the phone.

- In the dotcom 2000s, email & Content Marketing emerges. Email marketing; newsletters flooded our inbox and vied for our attention but search engines flipped the model, letting prospects find companies when they were ready to buy.

- Early 2010s – Marketing Automation & Data-Driven Outreach: Platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce via ExactTarget, matured  and enabled automated nurturing and segmentation. I am honoured and privileged to say that LinkedIn became a rich hunting ground for B2B while trade shows lost their lustre.

- The late 2010s saw development of better Intent Data & Personalisation: Tools like ZoomInfo and Clearbit provided more sophisticated data enrichment. Outbound prospecting evolved with better targeting and messaging. The webinar became a popular B2B marketing tool.

- In the 2020s we see AI, Account Based Marketing & Signal-Based Selling: Sales teams now leverage buying signals, website behaviour, social interactions, and AI-generated insights to prioritise outreach.

Why what worked in the past doesn't work now

Each wave of innovation built on the last, but also made previous methods less effective. What worked five years ago: cold email blasts, generic phone scripts, high-volume cold calling - simply doesn't cut through today. 

Prospects are overloaded, digitally fatigued, and better informed. 

Inboxes are flooded. Voicemail is rarely checked. Buyers want relevance, value, and timing, not volume. 

Reaching customers now requires skill, luck, timing and judgement. Subtlety, difference; a blend of past techniques with selected newer tools. Always be prospecting!

What about the cold call?

In the 1990s a common challenge as sellers was bypassing a decision maker’s secretary or gatekeeper. Now decision making has been spread out to a whole committee, and most of their phones have probably been on silent since 2019. I have colleagues (and family members) who simply don’t answer phone calls, but respond on Slack in seconds.

Our challenge as sellers, as it always has been, is to find the way people like to be reached, in a sea of noise. 

Today, less than 2% of cold calls result in a meaningful conversation. That doesn’t mean cold calling is dead—but it needs to be smarter:

✅ Supported by research

✅ Targeted at the right buyer

✅ Timed based on signals (e.g., recent company news, job changes)

✅ Positioned as a value-driven conversation, not a sales pitch

Expand Sales' approach

It should first be said that Expand Sales is NOT a lead generation or appointment setting business; we provide a fractional B2B sales team for the whole funnel. This means that when we are doing outreach we see it as part of the overall sales process, not just getting someone to download a whitepaper. 

Our B2B outreach is about precision, timing, and relevance. 

We use a modern, data-driven, and human approach:

1. Signal-Based Selling: We use real-time buying signals—like funding rounds, hiring activity, job title changes, website behavior—to prioritise outreach.

2. Smart Outbound + Inbound Nurturing: Cold outreach is only effective when it’s highly targeted, personalised, and combined with content and inbound engagement strategies.

3. Modern Tools & Automation: We leverage platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, Apollo, and AI-driven CRM tools to automate the tedious parts and let salespeople focus on conversations.

4. Human Expertise: Our fractional sales teams bring decades of B2B experience, combined with data and process, to build pipeline for our clients.

What worked five, ten, or twenty years ago won’t work now—but when modern tools introduce salespeople to a prospect at the right time, with the right offer, an opportunity is born. That’s what we deliver at Expand Sales.

Interested in learning how we can help your business grow in APAC?

Contact Expand Sales today.