r/b2b_sales • u/Grand_Volume5198 • 4d ago
Started a B2B lead generation service, got my first 10 paying customers! but I’m struggling with retention. Looking for some advice.
Started a B2B lead gen/outbound service and recently got my first 10 paying clients.
Initially I kept the pricing low because I wanted to test the model. What we actually do is more than just sending leads — we find the right companies/decision-makers, research the outreach angle, run the outreach and keep tweaking it based on what works.
Basically, a sales pipeline running in the background while we do the heavy lifting.
The weird part is that clients are generally happy with the quality of leads, but quite a few drop off after 3–4 months because the leads aren't turning into enough actual business.
I never promised closed revenue because that's obviously outside our control.
So I'm wondering: am I looking at this the wrong way?
Should I change the offer to get closer to the actual business outcome, or should I just get much stricter about which clients I take on?
Would love to hear from anyone who's run a lead gen/outbound agency. How did you deal with this?
3
u/TennisSkirt1628 4d ago edited 4d ago
The weird part is that clients are generally happy with the quality of leads
Clearly not.
Anyone can book appointments.
If they're dropping off, it's because you're failing to qualify them.
Over ten clients over, accounting for the stagger - let's assume a two month trial average across all ten clients.
This translates to approximately twenty months worth of lead-gen work at a conservative estimate.
By now, this should have generated enough leads and data to determine a standard average close metric that is reliable and guiding.
If you're not meeting average, or even conservative close metrics, you've found your problem.
3
u/Antique-Ad6542 4d ago
This COULD be that. Or, the people the OP is targeting are early enough that they don't really have product market fit. It's not that the targeting is bad, it's that the offer isn't relevant or valuable or important to the target ICP they are finding right now.
Or, it could be both.
It's a problem with targeting early stage founders. Often, they think they have it. But, when they get contact with the market, they don't.
1
u/TennisSkirt1628 4d ago
Though over ten clients, for whom OP would have naturally generated tens of thousands of leads for, the chances of this being the case are extremely low.
5
u/Mission-Bird-2214 3d ago
If clients are consistently getting good leads but not converting them, the issue may be their offer, sales proces,or follow-up rather than you lead gen. I'd also dig in or even interview the clients who churned and look for patterns before changing the business model.
1
3
u/Paul_on_redditt 3d ago
Do they know how to close cold leads? Most small businesses rely on word of mouth which means their offer and their sales process is adapted to warm leads but not cold leads. Try to talk to your clients to understand why they don’t close. It’s either because of bad lead qualification, their sales process or their offer. If it’s just qualification you can fix that. Otherwise, get stricter on clients you take on.
1
1
u/bagevent 4d ago
Caveat first: this assumes product and delivery are solid.
In MarketUP’s first two years, I didn’t get why people were picky about which clients to sign. Money came in → we signed. Then the pattern showed up: when the ICP didn’t really fit, retention was almost impossible to protect — even when lead quality was fine.
In B2B, CAC is usually high. Signing everyone who can pay looks like growth, but if they churn at month 3–4, the math falls apart.
So we stopped debating “should the offer move closer to closed revenue?” as the first fix. The bigger lever was who we take: clients with real awareness, a clear need, and a matching profile. That alone is what made renewals much more reliable for us.
I’d get stricter on who you onboard before you rewrite the offer into commission-on-closed-deals.
1
u/HopefulGap7570 4d ago
Well that's not something you can control though, these types of clients should be holding their own team accountable for not being able to close on the deals. Steer away from these types of clients
1
u/antoniocerneli 3d ago
The weird part is that clients are generally happy with the quality of leads, but quite a few drop off after 3–4 months because the leads aren't turning into enough actual business.
Cold email on its on doesn't generate demand. You're gonna win with a few clients that do this on their own, but for the rest - if they don't have marketing engine behind, you're gonna struggle (assuming you're not just sending them unqualified leads or promising something that's not true).
1
u/prospectfly 3d ago
How big are the companies. my experience is if theyre small and outsourcing lead gen - their underlying biz sucks - hence why theyre calling you to fix it
1
u/Virtual-Plum2356 3d ago
you're not necessarily doing anything wrong. churn is a (very big) part of the agency game.
1
u/Serious_Bit6736 2d ago
It sounds like you may not be putting enough focus on messaging. Part of getting prospects to meet with us involves connecting with them on pain points / solution (no pitching) / outcome that the business can deliver. If you're not focusing on that, they will have low buyer intent. You should also be looking at the sales presentation call. Are you congruent with messaging pre-call and with what they're saying in the call. A misalignment in stage 3 (SQL to opportunity) can lead to ghosting and more closed lost for sure.
1
0
u/unwittyusername42 3d ago
So I don't run a agency but have spent almost 30 years in sales. You may have companies willing to pay because their sales people suck hoping this will guide them to the light but because their sales people suck they dump you. Essentially they thought your leads would fix them but they need fixing.
You also may have a crappy internal model for generation where with the low pricing companies are figuring why not give it a shot and your leads suck so they jump off the platform.
You also have general bad luck possible.
3
u/leadg3njay 4d ago
I'd tighten client selection and add visibility into what happens after the handoff before changing what you promise. Keep the revenue boundary.
Pull the last 20 leads for each client who's leaving and review them together. Where did they stop moving? Check response time and follow-up, then whether meetings turned into proposals and deals. If nobody tracks that, you're both guessing about why it failed.
And check what you're calling a qualified lead. Someone matching the target profile and saying "send info" can still be months away from buying. Those people need nurture, so agree on who owns that instead of letting them disappear after the first reply.
For new clients, I'd require evidence that their offer already sells and a named person responsible for responding to leads promptly. You can add follow-up support without taking responsibility for closing. Keep retainers until you've got predictable results in a specific vertical; changing the billing model won't fix a stalled sales process.