There's a lot of buzz around generating new leads passively, about having people cold call or get cold traffic for you. But the most important thing everybody seems to ignore in these discussions is this: In a business situation like most of us are in, the major limiting factor is trust. If you think that a social media ad or a list of leads for cold calling is creating trust, you have to seriously question yourself – because most of the time it won't.

Standalone initiatives don't build trust; long-term relationships do. What you really should focus on is building these relationships. Technology is great for augmenting this process, for automating parts of it and for scaling up. But it can never replace genuine human connections.

Things might look a bit different, if you're selling lemonade on a hot, sunny day. But then again, maybe not.