Last week, I was at the local car wash with my son and watching as our car progressed through the automated wash. While we watched, a gentleman approached me and said that he wanted to give me a coupon for a free wash. Of course, I was curious—what was the catch?

It turns out the gentleman was an insurance agent. He was hanging out at the car wash to generate new leads. I was a little disappointed that there was something behind his random act of kindness, but I’ll give him credit for ingenuity. The offer was simply a free car wash to offer yourself up to get a quote. We talked for a few minutes because, of course, I was curious as to how well this was working for him.

Turns out, the project wasn’t all that fruitful and I’m not surprised. He was successful in tracking down his target market—people with cars. But that’s where it stops. There was no sizzle after the steak.

So here was his process: 1) he offered the free car wash and then introduced himself; 2) then he offered the complimentary insurance quote. He did a decent job of getting me to know him and he started to get me to like him with some simple small talk. However, after that is where the engagement stopped. And I even asked him to take me through the whole process because I thought maybe I wasn’t getting the whole story and I was also curious—I was thinking this might make a great case study.

There are a number of things he could have done at this point to actually gain a real lead. Even if people don’t go for the quote, this shouldn’t end up as wasted time. The idea here is to find a way to take the prospect to the next step—doing something to build some trust so that you have a means of continued contact. If you don’t get the contact information, you’ve missed out and you really are guilty of marketing only half way.

Just because someone isn’t interested in the quote, is there still an opportunity to further engage? Sure. The important point is that you want to provide useful and educational information so you can start to build some level of trust in the hopes that they will offer their contact information to give you the chance to continue to develop that trust.

The benefit of thinking this part through is that it keeps you focused and you don’t end up marketing half way. When small businesses are marketing, they often try to take people from the know stage directly to the buy stage, and that doesn’t work. Buyers need time to build some kind of relationship with you and build some level of trust with you. Being focused helps you to hone both your offer and your market, making sure you’re actually doing something that has some kind of benefit that you can measure.

The next point then is to put some goals and objectives around what you’re trying accomplish and actually measure it. This gentleman was trying to generate leads. So put some goals around how many leads you need to generate to deliver the kind of revenue or profit you’re looking to make. You can then break this down from annual numbers to what needs to be accomplished on a monthly basis so you have something manageable to work with.

In this case, the gentleman was out there to generate new leads. So create an offer that allows you the opportunity to market to these people. Here are 3 different options he could think about.

1. Newsletter Subscriber: Ask them if they are interested in understanding how to protect their family from something like a burglary or fire.

2. White Paper: Offer some kind of resource that educates them further about what kinds of activities can impact your auto insurance rates. The term white paper suggests that it’s not a sales document but that it’s intended to help educate rather than sell. You can offer to send it to them.

3. Facebook Business Page: Tell them you post car care maintenance tips on your Facebook page almost every day and that you think they might find some useful information. You can also use some simple contest to encourage people to visit the page frequently as well.

In each case, you’re able to measure—how many newsletter subscribers you have, how many have asked for your white paper, and how many Facebook likes you have.

Find measureable ways to monitor your lead generation efforts so you spend your time on the right activities and so you’ve got something to show for your efforts.