Lead generation
Sheet 2/12 · Medium · 3–10 weeksEnquiries arrive from Facebook, WhatsApp and walk-ins and vanish before anyone follows up.
- Facebook and Instagram comments say "price?" and "DM sent" and nobody replies to half of them.
- Leads live in three places — a WhatsApp chat, a notebook at reception, a salesperson's head.
- Follow-up happens once; the second and third touches never happen.
- You pay for boosted posts and cannot say how many enquiries they produced.
- Good leads and tyre-kickers get the same attention because nobody qualifies them.
- Reply to every enquiry within seconds with the questions that qualify it (what, when, where, budget).
- Put every lead in one place with source, time and answers attached.
- Run the second, third and fourth follow-up automatically, and stop when the customer says stop.
- Score leads by your rules so a person calls the right ten first.
- Create demand. If nobody is enquiring, the fix is marketing (P-03), not capture.
- Close the deal for anything that needs a site visit, a negotiation or trust.
- Fix attribution if you never tag the source — the "where did you hear about us" question must be in the flow.
- Message people who never contacted you without breaking Meta's rules and the Cyber and Data Protection Act's consent principles.
| Effort band | Medium · 3–10 weeks |
|---|---|
| Data you need | Your qualifying questions; product list; where leads come from today; a CRM (even a sheet) |
| Integration points | Meta (Facebook/Instagram) messaging, WhatsApp Business Platform, web forms, CRM |
| People | A sales owner who agrees the scoring rules and takes the calls |
| Measure | Enquiries captured; % qualified; response time; follow-ups completed; conversion |
| Zimbabwe constraint | Most demand starts on Facebook and WhatsApp; USD price lists change; consent for marketing messages |
| Code | Shape | Fit | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool | Listed WhatsApp platform with lead capture and tags | Primary | Captures, tags and stores enquiries; enough for a micro or small firm with one salesperson. |
| S-04 | Integration | Primary | The value is in one lead list. Connecting Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp/web forms to a single CRM is the core job. |
| S-02 | Pilot | Secondary | Four weeks on one campaign: measure enquiries, qualified leads and calls made before and after. |
| S-03 | Implementation | Secondary | Custom qualification logic, scoring, and sequences that respect your sales process. |
| S-06 | Managed support | Later | Sequences rot as products and prices change; someone must own them. |
- Which sources will be captured (Facebook comments, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, web forms, walk-ins) and how does each get a source tag?
- Show a lead entering, being qualified and appearing in our CRM with the answers attached.
- How is consent recorded for follow-up messages, and how does a customer opt out?
- What does the follow-up sequence do if the customer replies in the middle of it?
- How does scoring work — rules we set, or a model — and can we see why a lead scored 80?
- What is the monthly cost at 500 leads and at 5,000?
The full bank of 60 questions, grouped by risk, is at /vendor-questions/.
The leak diagram
Count where enquiries die. In most Zimbabwean SMEs the sequence looks like this — and the AI only helps at steps 2 to 4:
- Attention — a boosted Facebook post, a signboard, a referral. (Marketing, P-03.)
- Enquiry — a comment, a DM, a WhatsApp, a walk-in. Leak: no reply, or a reply on Monday.
- Qualification — what do they want, when, how much, where. Leak: nobody asks, so everyone gets a call or nobody does.
- Follow-up — the second and third touch. Leak: happens once, then never.
- Close — quote, visit, negotiation, payment. (Sales, P-04.)
Before buying anything, measure the leak at step 2 for one week: enquiries received versus enquiries answered within an hour. That number is the business case, and the same number is the pilot’s success test.
Consent is a feature, not a legal footnote
Zimbabwe’s data-protection regime (the Cyber and Data Protection Act and its 2024 licensing regulations) makes you the controller of the personal data your lead list holds. Build the consent question into the capture flow (“May we message you about this on WhatsApp?”) and log the answer. It costs nothing and it is the difference between a follow-up sequence and a complaint.
When not to buy this
If you receive fewer than ten enquiries a week, buy a listed platform for capture and spend the rest on marketing. Automation multiplies what exists; it does not create the first enquiry.