3 replies
I work with website creation alongside mobile website creation. I target small businesses of whom have an outdated website OR no website at all.

Looking for feedback on buying leads. Does it work? Any recommendations on who I should purchase leads from? How does the process work?

Thanks,
Jon.
#buying #leads
  • Profile picture of the author TheBigBee
    Originally Posted by Jon Martin View Post

    I work with website creation alongside mobile website creation. I target small businesses of whom have an outdated website OR no website at all.

    Looking for feedback on buying leads. Does it work? Any recommendations on who I should purchase leads from? How does the process work?

    Thanks,
    Jon.
    I have serious reservations about buying leads because I am accutely aware of what the data suggests. I would strongly recommend you really read and hyper analyze this: THE LEAD RESPONSE MANAGEMENT STUDY before you consider buying another lead. In a nutshell, you are 100x LESS LIKELY to qualify a lead in the first 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes. Forget about calling a day or two later.

    What I have find in the lead buying / selling business is that folks expect the lead to be a customer sitting on the other end of the phone, waiting to be sold a product or service. Think about that... If I generated the lead, and the person is "ready to buy" - doesn't it make sense for me to collect the check - mark up the product / service, and hire someone like you to execute?

    Consider this... everyone in your target range / market is a "lead." It's on you to convert them into a prospect, and then a customer. So, in theory, you already have leads. Buying prospects makes zero sense. I would strongly suggest that you accumulate a massive list of business owners who do not have web sites (but may have FB pages) and then do voicemail drops. I know such lists can be built because for sniffs and giggles, I built some. The average response rate for an ice cold voice mail drop is one half of one percent. Put out 10,000 messages for around $1,500 and get 50 inbound calls. You convert 10% of them at $1,000 a pop, you're looking at a $3,500 profit. The strength of your offer, quality of voice recording (attractiveness), are all factors that can push you in the 1% response range.

    The content and tone of your voicemails is an art form. If I'm dropping voicemails on auto repair shops, I am finding the sexiest female talent I can possible find to record a couple of messages to split test against. If I am calling restaurant owners, I'm simply going to record a passionate greeting myself. I know because I spent a bunch of time and money testing a solution to help a niche sell by phone. Only problem is, this niche needs to start running away from the phone and to other mediums. If I had any desire to sell web sites whatsoever, this is how I'd do it. Period.

    I favor leaving voicemails vs. cold calling these same lists because:
    1. Time is money. It makes more sense to spend your time working on ways to get business owners to CALL YOU.
    2. Interruption marketing is brutal. The simple fact of the matter is, cold calling is a numbers game because people do not want to be bothered.
    3. Passion + Enthusiasm Sells. I am not knocking cold calling, it is absolutely necessary in some businesses - period. John Durham's Import / Export business model comes to mind. However, this type of business requires volume. If you're manually interrupting business owners all day, your level of natural excitement / enthusiasm, and interest in the business succeeding will deteriorate. ALL IT TAKES IS ONE voice mail which is passionate, enthusiastic, etc. to drop hundreds of thousands of times.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jon Martin
      Originally Posted by TheBigBee View Post

      I have serious reservations about buying leads because I am accutely aware of what the data suggests. I would strongly recommend you really read and hyper analyze this: THE LEAD RESPONSE MANAGEMENT STUDY before you consider buying another lead. In a nutshell, you are 100x LESS LIKELY to qualify a lead in the first 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes. Forget about calling a day or two later.

      What I have find in the lead buying / selling business is that folks expect the lead to be a customer sitting on the other end of the phone, waiting to be sold a product or service. Think about that... If I generated the lead, and the person is "ready to buy" - doesn't it make sense for me to collect the check - mark up the product / service, and hire someone like you to execute?

      Consider this... everyone in your target range / market is a "lead." It's on you to convert them into a prospect, and then a customer. So, in theory, you already have leads. Buying prospects makes zero sense. I would strongly suggest that you accumulate a massive list of business owners who do not have web sites (but may have FB pages) and then do voicemail drops. I know such lists can be built because for sniffs and giggles, I built some. The average response rate for an ice cold voice mail drop is one half of one percent. Put out 10,000 messages for around $1,500 and get 50 inbound calls. You convert 10% of them at $1,000 a pop, you're looking at a $3,500 profit. The strength of your offer, quality of voice recording (attractiveness), are all factors that can push you in the 1% response range.

      The content and tone of your voicemails is an art form. If I'm dropping voicemails on auto repair shops, I am finding the sexiest female talent I can possible find to record a couple of messages to split test against. If I am calling restaurant owners, I'm simply going to record a passionate greeting myself. I know because I spent a bunch of time and money testing a solution to help a niche sell by phone. Only problem is, this niche needs to start running away from the phone and to other mediums. If I had any desire to sell web sites whatsoever, this is how I'd do it. Period.

      I favor leaving voicemails vs. cold calling these same lists because:
      1. Time is money. It makes more sense to spend your time working on ways to get business owners to CALL YOU.
      2. Interruption marketing is brutal. The simple fact of the matter is, cold calling is a numbers game because people do not want to be bothered.
      3. Passion + Enthusiasm Sells. I am not knocking cold calling, it is absolutely necessary in some businesses - period. John Durham's Import / Export business model comes to mind. However, this type of business requires volume. If you're manually interrupting business owners all day, your level of natural excitement / enthusiasm, and interest in the business succeeding will deteriorate. ALL IT TAKES IS ONE voice mail which is passionate, enthusiastic, etc. to drop hundreds of thousands of times.
      I appreciate your input on the situation. Thanks for taking the time to format the post and make it look so pretty too - haha!
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      • Profile picture of the author goindeep
        Im not that experienced but recently I hired a freelancer from Elance to build list of 300 leads from me. I asked him to fill certain areas of a spread sheet and one of those asked where the data was sourced from.
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