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Selling Leads to Local Offline Businesses? Advice?

by Iammikeoliver
9 replies
Hey guys I apologize if this is a repost. i went through the search option for a bit but perhaps my terms were too broad.

I have been aquiring a decent amount of what I would consider to be extremely valuable marketing leads - complete with all sorts of personal online and offline data.. a complete individual profile.

I am sure I can skim through these and group them to market to local businesses.... Is anyone else doing this? Has anyone done it? Does it work etc?

If so, success stories, and failures if you will. Also, what were the leads worth, if anything?

Many thanks gentleman!
#advice #businesses #leads #local #offline #selling
  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    If your leads are quality leads, indeed, it works. Take a look at lendingtree.com... They sell mortgage leads. They seem do well.

    What the leads are worth depends on industry... Easy way to find out is to try to sell a few.

    How do you get these leads? Can you, instead of selling leads, sell a lead-generation system? Look up MRomero on this forum, he goes into great detail about selling marketing systems.

    PS We bought mortgage leads at $37 a pop a while back. They came complete with all sorts of personal data and they had answered YES to the question DO YOU WANT To REfinance now or in the near future?

    THEY WERE NOT GOOD LEADS all the same. As a matter of fact, they were bad leads.

    Originally Posted by Iammikeoliver View Post

    Hey guys I apologize if this is a repost. i went through the search option for a bit but perhaps my terms were too broad.

    I have been aquiring a decent amount of what I would consider to be extremely valuable marketing leads - complete with all sorts of personal online and offline data.. a complete individual profile.

    I am sure I can skim through these and group them to market to local businesses.... Is anyone else doing this? Has anyone done it? Does it work etc?

    If so, success stories, and failures if you will. Also, what were the leads worth, if anything?

    Many thanks gentleman!
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrew S
    Sometimes it is better to do % of sale instead of selling the lead for a flat rate, I am looking at doing this now.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
      Pretty complicated and you're at high risk of getting cheated out of money. I wouldn't recommend method in most cases.

      Originally Posted by Andrew S View Post

      Sometimes it is better to do % of sale instead of selling the lead for a flat rate, I am looking at doing this now.
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    • Profile picture of the author SirThomas
      Originally Posted by Andrew S View Post

      Sometimes it is better to do % of sale instead of selling the lead for a flat rate, I am looking at doing this now.
      This only works, if you know the other party well and they HAVE to be very good in selling and that includes relentless follow up. In other words, only companies with established "selling system" could provide you with good returns.
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      • Profile picture of the author Matt Lee
        Originally Posted by SirThomas View Post

        This only works, if you know the other party well and they HAVE to be very good in selling and that includes relentless follow up. In other words, only companies with established "selling system" could provide you with good returns.
        I agree with the what they've said above - taking a % of their sales is a total gamble. You don't know what kind of sales process they have & you could totally shoot yourself in the foot. Your profits are at the mercy of how well they can close the leads you're bringing them.
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      • Profile picture of the author Andrew S
        Originally Posted by Rus Sells View Post

        Pretty complicated and you're at high risk of getting cheated out of money. I wouldn't recommend method in most cases.
        Originally Posted by SirThomas View Post

        This only works, if you know the other party well and they HAVE to be very good in selling and that includes relentless follow up. In other words, only companies with established "selling system" could provide you with good returns.
        These are both obvious issues and there's ways to solve them.

        I know a guy who is doing it currently and prefers % of sale over flat rate because of how much more money he makes.
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        • Profile picture of the author SirThomas
          Originally Posted by Andrew S View Post

          These are both obvious issues and there's ways to solve them.

          I know a guy who is doing it currently and prefers % of sale over flat rate because of how much more money he makes.
          Please, share with us what that guy does. BTW, I know many ways to solve those obstacles, but it takes more work than most lead generators would be willing to do. Also, some industries have regulations that prohibit "outside" party to get a % of the sale, unless they are licensed in that industry.
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  • Profile picture of the author bmag
    Originally Posted by Iammikeoliver View Post

    Hey guys I apologize if this is a repost. i went through the search option for a bit but perhaps my terms were too broad.

    I have been aquiring a decent amount of what I would consider to be extremely valuable marketing leads - complete with all sorts of personal online and offline data.. a complete individual profile.

    I am sure I can skim through these and group them to market to local businesses.... Is anyone else doing this? Has anyone done it? Does it work etc?

    If so, success stories, and failures if you will. Also, what were the leads worth, if anything?

    Many thanks gentleman!
    What I found was that local businesses weren't too keen on spending more than $29-$35/lead, and as such I decided to focus on selling the idea of being at the top of Google for 2 reasons:

    1. It'll drive traffic for them
    2. It feeds their brand (and subsequently, their ego).

    Being focused on building monthly recurring rev has been a substantial asset for our biz in terms of consistency and comfort

    Brian
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  • Profile picture of the author CynthiaC
    I did local business marketing for a few years and still manage several of their websites.

    I mention this because I also got the idea to collect and sell leads but before I started I decided to survey my current clients as well contacted other business's to find out what they were doing currently, and to see if they would happily part with money to purchase live leads.

    The feedback I got was pretty much to scale with the size of the business. The smallest didn't want to pay unless they were "guaranteed sales". Mid-size would pay $35 - $40 and the larger companies wanted to pay commission on a per/sale or pay $50 - $75 after the lead to make sure it was a qualified one.

    Issues that came up were:
    * Not getting paid on the per/sale.
    * I can't "guarantee" their sales force closing abilities or the marketability of their product. To many variables out of my control to guarantee a lead.
    * Going through the trouble to collect leads just to learn they really didn't want to buy them anyway.

    On further research it seemed that most of the successful lead generating companies pre-sell their leads. That is probably the best model to follow for the lead provider.

    I would suggest you experiment with your idea. Perhaps pick a price point and advertise to the market you want to sell to. Monitor how your market responds.

    You can even contact the business's directly.

    This method costs a couple of bucks up front but will answer your questions much faster and save you a tonne of headaches.
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