I have been working with a client for 30 days. So far, she has closed a 10k deal and has 3 more strong opportunities for over $100K/year each. She could reach her 2015 goals before the end of the quarter. When we shared her story with our other clients during a group training, one told me later that he was green with envy. What did she do? What tactics worked for her? How can they do the same thing? 

We get bombarded with content about where the best leads come from, what the next big thing is, and what we should stop doing and start doing right away. "Hey, they get all their leads from cold calling, maybe I should be doing that?" 

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad idea to know what others are doing to grow their business and try new things. The danger comes when you start taking other's success as a sign that what you are doing isn't working when you really don't know the rest of the variables like:

• Who their buyers are.
• What their value to those buyers are.
• How their buyers prefer to buy.

Even when you are looking at the competition, you have to consider these things. Not everyone is a good fit for anyone. 

It seems ironic to me, since we never see ourselves as being like any other. Have you ever said, "We don't have any real competitors, no one does what we do, like we do it." But when we get these infographics and data, we tend to take it as truth “They are just like us- we should be doing that.” 

Still want to chase the latest shiny new data that gives you the magic keys to the kingdom? Implisit says Facebook, Twitter and other social are the among the best places for B2B leads and events and email are much lower.

Read to jump on that bandwagon? You wouldn't be alone. Oh, might want to wait, because this data from Placester says the almost exact opposite.

There is contradicting data for where B2B sales came from in 2014. So how do you decide what you should be doing? Maybe it is not what you do as much as HOW you do it. The client I mentioned wasn't following a drastically different strategy than our other clients that were jealous of that success. The differences are the how it happens between them and their buyer. 

Like all data, this data must be put into context of your business, buyer, and market. Use your own data to ask these same conversion rate questions and create your own best practices. 

However, looking at where the best leads come from, which is what we care about as sales people, the best thing to look at is who people want to buy from. After all, people buy from people.

Where do your best customers come from? How do your buyers want to find and buy from you? How will 2015 be different from 2014?