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Sell offline lead gen site?

by btyiw
13 replies
I wanted to pass this by the more experienced members of this forum to get an idea of what you guys think I should do in this situation. A couple of months ago I started dedicating my time solely to building lead generation sites that I can rent to clients or sell leads to clients. I started off with developing a website for plumbing services and as soon as I got traffic I found a client.

The pay structure would go as followed:
15% of any job under $500
20% of any job above $500

Through the time period of February until today, this website has developed a massive amount of residential and commercial deals. The largest deal being $10,000 for one job through a bank which was looking to overhaul one of their properties. Just in these past few days, we've been offered two (2) other commercial opportunities. Whether or not they happen is really dependent on the salesmanship of the plumber and cost of estimation.

Overall I'm happy with the work quality of the plumber I'm doing business with due to the fact he picks up the phone 95% of the time and usually always closes the deal.

The site has consistently been hitting an average of 250 unique visitors for the past two (2) months. Call volume this month doubled compared to last month and within the last seven (7) days I've received over 25 calls which averages to about 3.5 calls per day. No real overhead except for hosting and all this within just a couple months.

The problem is I need to micromanage the plumber for the 5% of the calls he missed, to follow-up with him on some of the deals that didn't go through, etc. I could be spending my time building more of these lead generation sites and creating more money, but I'm all about efficiency and utilizing every call or visitor to make money. I would rather create these lead generation sites for businesses, sell them and continue doing this.

So I started toying with the idea of possibly selling the website to another local business or giving my current guy the opportunity to purchase it. If you guys were in my position, would you sell off the site? If so, how much would you price it at? Any other suggestions?


Thanks!
#gen #lead #offline #sell #site
  • Profile picture of the author RimaNaj2011
    Originally Posted by btyiw View Post

    I wanted to pass this by the more experienced members of this forum to get an idea of what you guys think I should do in this situation. A couple of months ago I started dedicating my time solely to building lead generation sites that I can rent to clients or sell leads to clients. I started off with developing a website for plumbing services and as soon as I got traffic I found a client.

    The pay structure would go as followed:
    15% of any job under $500
    20% of any job above $500

    Through the time period of February until today, this website has developed a massive amount of residential and commercial deals. The largest deal being $10,000 for one job through a bank which was looking to overhaul one of their properties. Just in these past few days, we've been offered two (2) other commercial opportunities. Whether or not they happen is really dependent on the salesmanship of the plumber and cost of estimation.

    Overall I'm happy with the work quality of the plumber I'm doing business with due to the fact he picks up the phone 95% of the time and usually always closes the deal.

    The site has consistently been hitting an average of 250 unique visitors for the past two (2) months. Call volume this month doubled compared to last month and within the last seven (7) days I've received over 25 calls which averages to about 3.5 calls per day. No real overhead except for hosting and all this within just a couple months.

    The problem is I need to micromanage the plumber for the 5% of the calls he missed, to follow-up with him on some of the deals that didn't go through, etc. I could be spending my time building more of these lead generation sites and creating more money, but I'm all about efficiency and utilizing every call or visitor to make money. I would rather create these lead generation sites for businesses, sell them and continue doing this.

    So I started toying with the idea of possibly selling the website to another local business or giving my current guy the opportunity to purchase it. If you guys were in my position, would you sell off the site? If so, how much would you price it at? Any other suggestions?


    Thanks!
    I wouldn't sell it unless it was a nice offer, instead just rent it out monthly. Just take the average amount of business it brings and use that are a guideline. If possible, could you share the design of your site?
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    • Profile picture of the author btyiw
      Originally Posted by RimaNaj2011 View Post

      I wouldn't sell it unless it was a nice offer, instead just rent it out monthly. Just take the average amount of business it brings and use that are a guideline. If possible, could you share the design of your site?
      I just purchase all of the offline themes being sold as WSO's and use those. No need for me to get anything custom made.
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      • Profile picture of the author Herberto
        Just out of interest - how many pages do you create for each site roughly?

        Thanks
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      • Profile picture of the author mrtrance
        Originally Posted by btyiw View Post

        I just purchase all of the offline themes being sold as WSO's and use those. No need for me to get anything custom made.
        How much content do you put on these sites?
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    I would not sell either, i would let him pay a flat fee for the leads that he didn't followed up on, that makes your hands free from the micro management. Sure maybe you will get a bit less for the leads but you save time (which in good is is money).

    But i would never sell my lead sites unless they where willing to pay at least three year of the last month revenue...
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    Learn How To Setup Your Own Six Figure Lead Generation Business.

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    • Profile picture of the author shockwave
      This is what I would do (in order of preference)...

      1. Try to rent out the site for a flat fee per month.
      2. Sell each lead for a flat-fee
      3. Sell the website outright for a big chunk of $$$
      4. Find an affiliate program to sell the leads to (via PPCall or Form Submit)
      5. Do the "commission" type of model that you are currently doing. Even though your client has good closing rate, it's still a PITA. This is always my last choice of monetizing.
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  • Profile picture of the author rugman
    I would just do a pay per call model. Tracking and following up on sales and commissions would be too much work. Spend your time scaling it up to other markets - remember - YOU are in the lead gen niche - THEY are in the plumbing niche. It is nice to get a cut of a 10K job but you need to track a whole bunch of smaller jobs as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author btyiw
    How do you guys price your per month and per lead model?

    If I were to sell this, how would one price the site?
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    • Profile picture of the author shockwave
      Originally Posted by btyiw View Post

      How do you guys price your per month and per lead model?

      If I were to sell this, how would one price the site?
      You can see my method on this thread ---> http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ml#post7989176 ...again, that's just the way I do it. There are certainly other ways to make the magic happen.
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  • Profile picture of the author MelanieandMiles
    Just lease the site to them for a monthly flat fee and go do it again and again with different niches and different locations! You can build up a portfolio worth thousands per month rather quickly.

    I have a great friend who has a significant portfolio of local service sites he built up... His entire method was to pick a city/state and profession and then build a site for that niche and get it ranking. Then, once it was ranking and generating leads, he simply leases out the site to a local person in that niche... Generally from $250 - $2500 per month, depending on the niche.

    They stop paying, he finds someone else to lease the site. If they suck at calling back the leads they get.... Who cares, you still get paid.

    Really, I think a big trick is to detach yourself from the outcome of the leads as much as possible... Micro-managing a self employed plumber? No thanks... And honestly, it is probably impossible, because your talking about deeply psychological beliefs and patterns they are operating under.

    Keep it really simple... Pick a monthly price your comfortable with, find a client to lease it from you for that amount and get busy working on your next sites!

    10 sites like this at $500 per month... Or 20 sites at $250 per month is $60,000 per year... With ZERO micro-management requirements.

    Keep up the great work!
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  • Profile picture of the author btyiw
    Thanks for the advice guys. I decided not to sell but to rent out the site. Just sent an email to the plumber requesting $600/mo with a six (6) month commitment. I believe this is a beyond fair offer for someone who can potentially take in $5000 a month in profit.

    Also, I developed a 2nd plumbing lead gen site, different theme, different host, etc.. Started on it three (3) weeks ago, started indexing/ranking two weeks ago and it's gotten 17 leads as of now. Based on what I'm seeing here, I'm going for the renting model and aiming for $500/mo on this one.
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Thats not a problem if its 5%. Or maybe the real problem is the profit margins in your niche. My one niche site got 14 calls last week. But the profit margins are much higher. We don't sell ANY jobs under $2,000. Average is usually around $5,000-$6,000.

    If you're really paranoid.

    Call accounting.

    Record calls. Put a tracker on the contractor. Make them wear walkie talkies in the homes. A GPS navigation device injected under their skin. Gain access to their bank accounts. Do it like the CIA. You will never waste time chasing leads down lol.

    But seriously, 5% is not bad. What I don't like is 20% on jobs over $500. I think you should raise it to $1000.

    The problem with lead gen is you never want to become the "boss". Its a role I've been in before, and it does nothing but cause problems. I only work with 3 contractors, one who is my brother. But I give them enough line to hang themselves with. At the same time, I've give them so much leeway, it incentivizes them to follow through WITH ME.

    Something that happens every other week it seems. One of them will say something like "you remember that lead from 3 months ago? we closed it today". I'll be like "what lead?". They'll tell me and I still don't remember. Then I'll say "just keep the money, thats incentive for being honest with me".

    You got to treat them well. They need room to grow and be motivated. And you really need to qualify who you work with. For instance, I was working with one contractor for a good 3 months. I decided to do a random background check, and found out this guy had a record. I also found out he was using my leads to promote his own company on the side.

    So really pay attention to the people you work with. Give them freedom, but make them earn it. And the minute you see inconsistencies, find a new plumber/contractor.

    -Red
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    • Profile picture of the author btyiw
      Oh ya, what niche might this be? Construction related?
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

      Thats not a problem if its 5%. Or maybe the real problem is the profit margins in your niche. My one niche site got 14 calls last week. But the profit margins are much higher. We don't sell ANY jobs under $2,000. Average is usually around $5,000-$6,000.

      If you're really paranoid.

      Call accounting.

      Record calls. Put a tracker on the contractor. Make them wear walkie talkies in the homes. A GPS navigation device injected under their skin. Gain access to their bank accounts. Do it like the CIA. You will never waste time chasing leads down lol.

      But seriously, 5% is not bad. What I don't like is 20% on jobs over $500. I think you should raise it to $1000.

      The problem with lead gen is you never want to become the "boss". Its a role I've been in before, and it does nothing but cause problems. I only work with 3 contractors, one who is my brother. But I give them enough line to hang themselves with. At the same time, I've give them so much leeway, it incentivizes them to follow through WITH ME.

      Something that happens every other week it seems. One of them will say something like "you remember that lead from 3 months ago? we closed it today". I'll be like "what lead?". They'll tell me and I still don't remember. Then I'll say "just keep the money, thats incentive for being honest with me".

      You got to treat them well. They need room to grow and be motivated. And you really need to qualify who you work with. For instance, I was working with one contractor for a good 3 months. I decided to do a random background check, and found out this guy had a record. I also found out he was using my leads to promote his own company on the side.

      So really pay attention to the people you work with. Give them freedom, but make them earn it. And the minute you see inconsistencies, find a new plumber/contractor.

      -Red
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