Offering a free report or white paper to stock your pool of prospects is a common practice. But let's face the facts. Only some of these prospects will eventually give you time for an initial prospect meeting. To sort out the qualified leads, your salesperson has to take time to further qualify, follow up and nurture all the leads.

In fact, most of the new leads will turn out to be unqualified prospects. And working these unqualified prospects waste your salesperson's time and drags down the percentage of your leads that progress to an initial customer meeting. Your salesperson might not appreciate all this work. They will eventually stop using the leads your working so hard at generating.

If you're ready to be more aggressive and send your salesperson more leads that will progress to an initial prospect meeting, here is how you can tweak your program. All you need to do is look at what's behind free offers.

It seems obvious. You offer to your list of suspects a valuable report. Those who see value in the report will send for it, knowing there is a catch. They know they have to provide you with their contact information. But there is actually something else going on here that will win you more qualified leads. There is a fair and well-known bartering system you need to exploit.

How to get more for your free report

Let's see how this works. Trying to get better-qualified prospects from the get-go usually reduces your return rate. You're forced to use a hard offer to stop unqualified prospects from requesting your report. But because you made the offer hard to get, you also loose some genuinely qualified leads.

But you can combine a soft with a hard offer using this bartering system and get more of these genuinely interested people to respond to your offer. More importantly, when you exploit this bartering system you'll get these qualified leads to readily agree to an initial prospect's meeting-- right from the beginning. This is because in this bartering system the medium of exchange is time and information. The result: your salesperson will spend more of their time with potential customers.

All you have to do is up the ante of your free report and ask your prospect to give you more-for what's a fair exchange. If your report provides a higher value than what you usually offer, your prospect will be ready to give you more in exchange for it. In fact, they'll want to. After all your prospects is naturally a fair person. An an added bonus is that the more people give you for it, whatever that means to them, the more likely they will read it. It was worth more, they now feel compel to read it.

If it's time for you to be more aggressive this is one tactic you need to use:

Increase the value of the report you offer by giving your prospect added information for them to make sound business decisions. The report should be about their success. It'll work best if you commission the report from a third party.

The report has to stand out as different than any other report they've received before. The prospect has to clearly perceive greater value.

Make the offer as easy for the prospect to respond. But ask for more. Directly ask for an initial prospect meeting.

Persuade the prospect that this meeting is about finding out how you're services will help them succeed. It'll be strictly about them not about what you offer.

Nothing profound here, except that we often overlook this bartering system. Simply it takes into consideration human nature. This is just good salesmanship.

Let human nature's bartering system work for you

Now, let me tell you why this works and perhaps you can apply the concept in a way that'll work for your specific situation. Why not be as aggressive as you need to with lead generation?

Recently I received a report for free. I knew I had to give up my contact information for it, but I felt it was a fair exchange. I really didn't want anyone to call me, but I had to pay something for the report. And it seems like the report was worth me fielding a call from a salesperson. So I signed up and received the report.

To my surprise this report was 235 pages. I was expecting at the most a 15 to 20 page report that would give me an insight or a tip on how software can help a sales team succeed. But as I looked over the report this was a well-researched chuck-full of good information report.

I went back to the website and read more carefully how they were selling the benefits of the report. This relevant and up-to-date report was featured in the Harvard Business Review. It was valued at $279. And I got it for leaving contact information with this software company.

Now I was feeling uncomfortable. What's worse, I never got a call. I know this was a free report, but I also know deep down that it means I had to give something back in return, it's just not cash. I had the feeling I should have given them more for it. After all, I'd like to be fair.

Well sure, the feeling left me quickly and I didn't do anything about it. But I knew I got a surprisingly valuable report for at lot less than what I gave them. I got a steal. But for a short time, that bothered me.

If I knew the value of the report upfront and still wanted it without taking out my credit card, no doubt I'd have cleared my schedule and given the sales person an initial prospect meeting. It is only fair.

Believe me, your prospect know the value of a white paper or a report. They know what they're obligated to you for. If you provide them with a higher-value report or white paper, they'll know what's fair. We know how this works from research and from direct mail experience.

Social psychologists like Robert Cialdini have been telling us for years that for some consumers higher price or value means higher quality. Because certain people want the higher quality, they'll gladly pay the higher price. Asking for a lower price, although it's the same high quality, gives the impression that the quality is not there.

Because of our sense of fairness, those who equate quality with expensive feel obligated to pay more for what is perceived as higher quality. What's more if the report is valued let's say at $279, it's only fair to give up more than just their contact information. In fact, they'll feel obligated to you to give you more. Now, there are people, Cialdini tells us, who abuse this obligation successfully to their benefit, but you're here only requesting what's fair to you.

It works for B2B direct marketing

This has proven to work in B2B direct marketing. Bob Bly a veteran B2B copywriter in his book Business to Business Direct Marketing reports that some marketers charge for the report. These will give them a few qualified leads. This means these leads are genuinely interested in what you offer. But he recommends something better.

Tie the soft offer, the free report, to a hard offer. Bly writes:

I personally like the offer of a free booklet or report related to the product or service being offered. This is most often used in the soft offer ("Send for free report"), but it could conceivably be tied to a hard offer. For instance, you can offer an impressive report with the condition that it is hand-delivered by a salesperson whom prospects agree to see for an initial appointment....

Some B2B companies offer a free report for more than a contact information. They want you to fill out information that will qualify you. APC is currently running ad add promoting their white papers. The first thing they did is to sell up up the value of their report. Their headline read "We just spent almost $90 million researching solutions to tomorrow's server problems." And in the body of the ad they offer 9 different white papers. Each white paper has a price beside it. They tell us the reports go from $120 to $65.

To receive this clearly valuable reports all they want you to do is go to a website or call an 800 number. At the website they tell you that to receive three of these reports, they want your contact information and additional information that will qualify you. This is not bad. At least it qualifies the prospect. But I would ask for an initial meeting right from the website or when they call.

We all know that if we take the free report there is a catch to it. We immediately guess what's coming. It's a well established business bartering system. I get the report for my contact information. That's fair. But if the report has a higher value, I expect to pay more. To ask for more from the prospect is to use the system well. It's good salesmanship.

In salesmanship as in direct marketing, we can't wimp out when the time comes to ask what is only a fair exchange. Since your prospect accepted your valuable report, the prospect knows the report comes with a catch. Your prospect knows what's fair. This is an easy first initial prospect meeting. Go ahead and ask for it.

In Brief:

To get leads ready for an initial prospect meeting you need to offer a higher value report or white paper and ask for more

Because your prospect is basically a fair person, when you give more, he'll want to pay for what's fair to them

Remember time and information is the medium of exchange for white papers

When you use this bartering system that is well-established in the market you'll get better qualified leads

Social psychologist and B2B direct marketers have proven this bartering system's effectiveness

This is why when you up the ante of your offering, you'll get more prospects progressing to an initial prospect's meeting

And your salespersons will spend more time with future customers instead of qualifying leads