Many B2B software companies struggle with an insufficient flow of leads. When the pipeline is too thin, the familiar response is to do more: run more campaigns, publish more content, contact more prospects, and recruit more partners.
But will doing more of the current process produce the leads you need? If the process does not work, increasing its volume may simply increase its cost. Before committing more resources, we need to establish whether the approach deserves to be scaled or whether something must change.
Perhaps the product does not solve a sufficiently important problem for the customers we target. Perhaps it does, but our teasers – the short messages and offers intended to prompt a response – fail to communicate its relevance. Or perhaps the messages are persuasive, but the channels carrying them do not reach the right people.
These explanations call for different actions. A shortage of leads, by itself, tells us neither which explanation is correct nor what we should do next.
This is where business model analysis becomes relevant. We need to review the evidence, assess our options, formulate our assumptions, define the activities required to test them, and allocate the necessary resources.
These questions are central to my forthcoming book, Building Successful Business Models — Business Model Management in the B2B Software Industry. To help you begin that examination, I have created a free Lead Generation & Qualification Health Check.
Will doing more generate more relevant leads?
Doing more can be the right decision when evidence shows that a process reliably generates relevant leads at a sustainable cost and has room to grow. But weak results require investigation before expansion.
Start by tracing what happens. How many suitable organisations do we reach? How many people respond to the teaser or offer? How many responses become meaningful conversations? How many of those conversations reveal a credible opportunity?
Low reach suggests a different problem from low response. A campaign that attracts many unsuitable enquiries needs a different intervention from one that reaches suitable prospects but gives them no reason to reply. A small, effective campaign may need more resources; a large, ineffective one may need a different approach.
Review results by customer segment, message, offer, and channel, including activities performed by partners. Combine the numbers with customer interviews, feedback from prospects, and the reasons people decline or disengage. Silence alone does not tell us whether to change the product, the message, or the channel.
Lead quality still matters. Downloads and replies are starting points. Qualification establishes the customer’s problem, urgency, business case, buying process, and ability to implement a solution. The aim is a sufficient flow of relevant leads that can become qualified opportunities.
Lead generation depends on the business model
Poor results are not always evidence of insufficient marketing or sales activity.
A company may target organisations that recognise the problem but cannot justify the cost of solving it. Its value proposition may describe an outcome that interests senior management, while its channels reach mainly technical users. Its campaigns may generate enquiries from customers whose implementation requirements make them commercially unattractive.
A partner strategy introduces further dependencies. Partners need the competence, capacity, and economic incentive to identify and qualify opportunities. Signing agreements does not create those capabilities automatically.
In each case, improving one activity may have limited effect unless the connected choices also change.
More enquiries will not resolve a mismatch between the customer segment and the delivery model. Faster follow-up will not create urgency where the customer has no compelling reason to act.
We therefore need to examine both the activities and the relationships between them.
Review the business model before committing resources
A business model review turns competing explanations into a plan for learning. Before expanding activity or making a major change:
- Review the evidence. Establish the lead flow required to support your objectives and compare it with actual reach, response, qualification, and cost. Identify what you know and where evidence is missing.
- Assess the options. Consider changing the target segment, the product or offer, the teaser and value proposition, the channels, or the level of activity. Examine the dependencies and trade-offs.
- Formulate the assumptions. State why you expect each proposed change to improve results and what evidence would challenge that belief.
- Define the tests. Specify the activities, audience, measures, and time frame. Agree in advance what would justify continuing, revising, or stopping.
- Allocate the resources. Assign an owner and commit the budget, time, skills, and partner capacity needed to run the tests and evaluate the results.
For example, suppose relevant prospects see your message but rarely respond. You might assume that a teaser describing a specific business problem will generate more relevant conversations than a list of product features. Test both with comparable audiences through the same channel, assess the quality as well as the number of responses, and set a budget and review date. If neither works, investigate other explanations before increasing spend.
This is a business model review exercise: deciding what to test, why, and with which resources before deciding what to scale.
A practical starting point: ten questions
The Health Check helps assess how effectively your company generates leads and converts them into qualified opportunities.
It covers ten activities:
- Defining the key target customers.
- Assessing product relevance and reasons to act.
- Testing teasers and a relevant value proposition.
- Reaching the right people.
- Generating relevant leads consistently.
- Converting initial interest into substantive conversations.
- Establishing the business case for change.
- Understanding the buying process.
- Applying consistent qualification criteria.
- Testing assumptions with defined activities and resources.
For each activity, you rate your current performance from 1 to 5. A score of 1 means major improvement is needed. A score of 5 means you see no room for improvement.
The page calculates your total, provides an interpretation, and highlights your lowest-scoring activities. You can print the assessment or save it as a PDF.
Take the free Lead Generation & Qualification Health Check
No email address is required to see your result.
Use the score to start a discussion
The total provides a starting point for considering how much attention this part of your business model needs. It is a self-assessment, not an independently validated benchmark.
A high total can still conceal a critical weakness. Your evidence also matters: what recent results support each rating?
For a more revealing exercise, ask colleagues in marketing, sales, product management, and leadership to complete the check independently for the same customer segment.
Then compare the answers.
If one person rates qualification as excellent while another considers it weak, examine the cases behind their assessments. Are they using the same definition of a qualified lead? Looking at the same customers? Evaluating the same stage of the process?
Use the lowest scores to choose an issue for a business model review. Follow the sequence above: evidence, options, assumptions, test activities, and resources. The score identifies where to investigate; it does not tell you which solution will work.
From the Health Check to a broader review
The Health Check examines one part of the business model. The book takes a broader view.
Building Successful Business Models applies Alexander Osterwalder’s business model framework to the realities of B2B software, including complex buying processes, implementation, integration, customer relationships, partner dependencies, and the economics of growth.
Its purpose is to help leadership teams examine the model as a connected system, identify constraints, and test proposed changes through a structured workshop process.
The book is scheduled for publication in December 2026. The Kindle edition will be available free during a five-day launch promotion.
Read a sample and sign up to be notified when the Kindle edition is free
In the meantime, start with the Health Check. Before investing in more lead-generation activity, establish whether your current approach works, what might need to change, and how you will test the alternatives.
