First, you have to think of it as a real engine.  It has to be a leads machine that has multiple parts that work flawlessly together.  The failure of any one part of your lead engine will cause the whole thing to fail to run to it’s completion.

That means using quality tools to track leads, follow up with leads and categorize leads at every stage.

It also means that you have to design your small business lead engine to have a clear business purpose.  You would not build a mechanical engine that ultimately does not do something.  Likewise, why would you build a lead generation engine if it does not ultimately dive sales up?

Your lead engine is going to have some components such as an autoresponder, which nearly everyone needs to have.  But beyond that, you may use a CRM or you may use a spreadsheet in Google Docs.  You might follow up via phone or you might use your autoresponder to encourage people to call you when they are ready.

Ultimately, design your lead engine, launch the thing and measure the results.  Then look for weaknesses in the lead generation process and experiment with ways to improve them.

When you are first starting out, the number one rule is not to put all your faith in one marketing technique unless you have your own, independent proof that it is a highly effective small business lead generation technique.

Small Business Start Ups tend to be new to business and they believe that marketing will work on the first try.

For example, you may have $5,000 of start up money and decide to do a direct mailing – figuring if only 5% of those people buy your product, you are doing great.

But remember, it is possible that no one will respond to your mailing.  And unless you have a honed sales process, closing the few leads you generate is still going to be difficult.  So now if that small business lead generation budget was all you had, you are in trouble.

Before you pick a tactic for your lead generation, design a lead generation strategy.  What communication avenues are your prospects using most?  Is it yellow pages?  The web?  Direct Mail?

Then go do research on how to get the most out of the small business lead generation tactics in those mediums.

Then, do small tests and trials to see how it works.

But do not give up after one trial.

The reason is that your skill at doing these things will improve over time, and most marketing efforts take repeat exposure to work well.  The web does not take repeat exposure as often because it can draw a hot lead to you at the time that they are ready to buy.  However, the competition is often fierce and it takes a long while and a lot of effort to build a really good lead generation website.