“Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer, and clearer still. The image is passing through you in a physiological way, into your brain, into your memory - where it stays - it's transmitted by your hands." – David Hockney

I get asked for hot takes here and there. Especially when I was actively trying to help reporters on a deadline. They would ask for help on a topic but what they really wanted was a strong opinion, a hot take, that could spice up their article. Especially if the hot take was contrarian.
My problem with hot takes is I'm not good at them. My default response to most questions is "it depends." This week a friend asked me what's the best lead generation strategy and tool you've ever used or seen? I said, it depends. He said, just tell me whatever comes to mind. He wanted a hot take.
What I wanted to give him is a framework for determining which lead gen strategy is going to be best for whatever project he is working on. He wants to know the time, I want to tell him how a watch works. It reminded me of a favorite whiteboard tool, a grid you can draw to help people make strategic decisions about which direction to go. It's a "more like this, less like that" grid.

The way it works is you put the two competing focuses against each other on the top. For instance, with lead generation it may be a question between online versus offline lead generation. The bottom part is where the fun is. We list the issues/priorities we're considering. For lead gen it may be things like budget (high or low), timeline (weeks or years), personnel (in house or outsourced), and target customer (new or existing). As you can see, we state the issue and then identify extremes. We'll orient the extremes under each focus, then spend time talking about each one, saying "are we more like this, or more like that?" a lot.
The discussion creates the magic of consensus. It gets us on the same page for answering the question like "what's the best lead generation strategy and tool for us?"
Try it. The first few times it may be rough, but once you use it with your team, everyone will start using it and action follows.
As for my friend's question? My hot take is the best lead gen strategy I've ever seen is an offsite event combining prospects and customers rubbing elbows with one another.
It works for cults, it'll work for you.
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