Where a small business finds its leads

1. Your existing customers

People who already buy from you are the easiest revenue there is: they know you, you don't have to explain yourself, and there's no quoting process with three competitors in it.

There are two things in there. Work they don't yet buy from you — and you'll only know about that if you ask how things are going at their end. And people they know: see the piece on existing customers.

2. Customers you've lost, and quotes that didn't land

This is the most neglected list in almost every business. A quote that fell through on timing a year ago might be live now. A customer who moved to someone cheaper has since found out what that meant.

You don't have to invent anything: you have a reason to ring that came out of the last conversation. For that you do need to have written the reason down — see the piece on lost deals.

3. Referrals

The highest conversion of the lot, and the source least worked because asking feels awkward.

The awkwardness is mostly in the timing. Ask out of nowhere and it feels like begging. Ask straight after someone has said things are going well and it's a logical next sentence. See the piece on asking for referrals.

4. Being found for what people actually search

Not "the best installer in the UK", but the specific thing someone types in ten minutes before they ring: *boiler replacement cost*, *how to give notice to a supplier*, *example quote for an extension*.

This works slowly — count in months, not weeks — and then it keeps working without you paying for it. That's the exact opposite of advertising, which stops the moment you stop.

One page that answers a real question properly does more than ten pages about yourself.

5. Your network, but with follow-up

Networking events, trade associations, the builder you work alongside. This returns almost nothing without the boring part: a message within two days, and writing it down.

Without that follow-up a networking event is an evening out. See the piece on following up after networking.

6. Cold outreach

Emailing or ringing people who don't know you. This is at the bottom because it costs the most work per customer, not because it doesn't work.

It works when you have a sharp list and a reason that comes from *them*. It doesn't work when you send a hundred identical emails. And there are rules — see cold outreach and can you send that email.

The free register most people forget

One British advantage worth using, whichever two sources you pick. The Companies House register is free and public: registered address, date of incorporation, current and former officers, previous company names, insolvency information and filed documents, for every limited company in the country.

The genuinely useful part isn't the search, it's the alerts. You can follow a company and get an email whenever it files something — a new director, a change of address, its annual accounts. That turns a list of names into a list of reasons to get in touch, which is the one thing a cold approach actually needs.

It covers companies and LLPs, so a large part of the market isn't in it at all: of the 5.7 million UK businesses at the start of 2025, 3.2 million were sole proprietorships and 368,000 ordinary partnerships, against 2.1 million actively trading companies. For those three million the first three sources on this list are all you've got, which is another argument for working them properly.

Pick two

The biggest mistake is doing all six a little bit. Then there's not enough of any of them to see whether it works, and after two months you stop, concluding that nothing helps.

Pick two and do them consistently for a quarter. Record where every new customer came from — one field is enough. After a quarter you no longer have a feeling, you have a short list, and then you know where next quarter's time goes.