This is marketing simplified. There are three ways to generate opportunities, and everything you have ever done to fill a pipeline is one of them.
Seeds: many to many
Your network. Your relationships. Your referrals. You plant them over years and they grow on their own schedule.
Seeds produce the best opportunities you will ever get. A referral arrives pre-trusted, and it closes faster than anything else in your pipeline. Nobody should stop planting them.
The catch is control. You do not know what is coming in, when it is coming in, what size it is, or what sector it is in. You cannot turn seeds up in a slow quarter. They are also expensive in a way that does not show up on an invoice: trade shows, conferences, lunches, and a lot of hands shaken for one good introduction.
Nets: one to many
Your content. Your articles. Your posts. You cast the net and wait to see what swims into it.
Nets build credibility at scale, and they work while you sleep. You should be doing this too.
But a net only catches what swims past it. The owner who has never considered selling is not reading your post about multiples, because he is not looking for it. Nets reach people who are already in motion.
Spears: one to one
You pick a specific owner and you go get them. Sector, revenue, location, ownership, however you define your buy-box. Then you reach out directly, by email, by phone, by voicemail, and you say the plainest thing there is:
Spears are the only one of the three where you choose who you talk to. That single difference is what makes them predictable.
Side by side
- Seeds and nets are not exclusive. The owner who came to you through a referral or an article is usually talking to other advisors too. You are in a race.
- Spears are usually proprietary. Typically nobody else is talking to these owners, because nobody else went looking for them.
- Seeds and nets are inconsistent by nature. High quality, low volume, and no control over the timing.
- Spears are measurable. Activity in, conversations out. You can count every input and every result, and you can adjust either one.
None of this is an argument against seeds and nets. We run spears with seeds and nets, and you should be doing all three. The point is that only one of the three gives you a pipeline you can turn up when you need it.
What gets measured gets done. Spears are the only channel of the three where the inputs are fully yours to control.