In other words, working harder translated usually means: "what we are doing isn't working, so do more of it!" Lead Generation Causes New Customer Acquisition I see a future in which sales is more and more like account management, and the focus of new customer acquisition responsibility growth falls more squarely on lead generation executives with titles like (VP Demand Generation, VP Pipeline Growth, VP Lead Generation, VP Sales Development). Okay, some of you are saying, "You're crazy. I'm hiring salespeople and they're adding new revenue. And it's worked for me for 10 years. Without great salespeople, we wouldn't be closing these customers." Right. That did work in the past. Things change. It’s true that you need great salespeople to close customers, but the better your lead generation is, the less dependent you are on the quality of your salespeople and sales process. Better lead generation = more margin for sales error. Let’s do a quick comparison of two competitors: Competitor A: Trying to double from $10 million in revenue to $20 million. 10 salespeople today, growing to 15. Generating $3 million per month in new pipeline through proven campaigns in lead generation and marketing (40% of pipeline), a Cold Calling 2.0 team (40% of pipeline), and partners (20% of pipeline). [We’ll get to what these terms mean later in the book.] Their salesperson ramp time is 4 months, because they create pipeline for the rep to “walk into.” Competitor B: