Never got a "NO" from selling this

by bawls
157 replies
I have been hustling offline to online for around 12 years now, but like anyone who makes a real effort can probably tell it is getting increasingly more difficult to sell traditional online services to offline business, and probably will just keep going that direction.

So I have taken to just selling leads to local services such as roofers,plumbers, ect.

This is the easiest cold call you will ever make, they not only are more than happy to buy your leads but will conform to any manner to which you sell them.

So if you can actually help a business with their online promotion, you should be able to generate leads.

will field any questions from anyone who has them.
#selling
  • Profile picture of the author epark732
    How do you generate quality leads for them?

    I agree 100% that selling them legitimate leads/new business/money in their pocket is the easiest sale you can make. It's also great because you can form an ongoing relationship where you sell them once on the idea and then just continue to provide the leads and pocket the cash.

    The hardest part though is getting the leads.

    I'd love to know exactly how you do it.

    Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by epark732 View Post

      How do you generate quality leads for them?

      I agree 100% that selling them legitimate leads/new business/money in their pocket is the easiest sale you can make. It's also great because you can form an ongoing relationship where you sell them once on the idea and then just continue to provide the leads and pocket the cash.

      The hardest part though is getting the leads.

      I'd love to know exactly how you do it.

      Thanks
      SEO to a 20(sometimes 30) mile radius
      Google Places,Yahoo and Bing local
      craigslist and backpage
      local business directories (that have a side benefit of ranking Google Places )

      video seo to take up more spaces on the serps.
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      • Profile picture of the author epark732
        Originally Posted by bawls View Post

        SEO to a 20(sometimes 30) mile radius
        Google Places,Yahoo and Bing local
        craigslist and backpage
        local business directories (that have a side benefit of ranking Google Places )

        video seo to take up more spaces on the serps.
        Are you doing all of this to a generic website or landing page?
        Like "best boston roofer" or something? I have always found that generic city+service pages don't convert nearly as well as an actual business page.

        I personally prefer to contact a real business rather than some stock photos and generic copy.

        Thanks
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        • Profile picture of the author bawls
          Originally Posted by epark732 View Post

          Are you doing all of this to a generic website or landing page?
          Like "best boston roofer" or something? I have always found that generic city+service pages don't convert nearly as well as an actual business page.

          I personally prefer to contact a real business rather than some stock photos and generic copy.

          Thanks
          Nope just make up a legit sounding name like "Smith Brothers Roofing" and build a sniper style 4 page site, with a EMD or NMD...but once you get a cleint just add their logo if they seem legit.
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          • Profile picture of the author bawls
            The best part of lead gen is that you own the property and if someone quits you, just get another business to buy those leads...all work you do is building a bigger business for you vs. building a bigger business for someone else.
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          • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
            Originally Posted by bawls View Post

            Nope just make up a legit sounding name like "Smith Brothers Roofing" and build a sniper style 4 page site, with a EMD or NMD...but once you get a cleint just add their logo if they seem legit.
            That is exactly the way you should do it, when you target a city and you start with leads buy a expired domain, go to expireddomains.net and look for the city you want to target.

            I use domains like rbnewyork.com or bwwmanchester.org, i still use the city name but leave the service out of the domain...

            Also i have found that the themes that are being sold here as lead generation themes have nothing on a semi professional look like in bawls's sample.

            I have tried all the slick themes/layouts out there and i have the best luck with sites that have a certain look and feel, not the look and feel of a great designed, shinny, flashy website

            I build my websites now with weaver two nothing flashy or shinny at all, when you have a client ask if you can have some pictures of them, of their workplace, of their work, so that your site doesn't look like a lead generator.

            Small tips on the leads

            Always try to sell your clients exclusive phone-leads, the thing is that the response time on phone-leads is very short and that will help your conversions dramatically... hide your email box and make your visitors use the phone as much as possible

            Goodluck

            Dave
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            • Profile picture of the author bawls
              Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

              That is exactly the way you should do it, when you target a city and you start with leads buy a expired domain, go to expireddomains.net and look for the city you want to target.

              I use domains like rbnewyork.com or bwwmanchester.org, i still use the city name but leave the service out of the domain...

              Also i have found that the themes that are being sold here as lead generation themes have nothing on a semi professional look like in bawls's sample.

              I have tried all the slick themes/layouts out there and i have the best luck with sites that have a certain look and feel, not the look and feel of a great designed, shinny, flashy website

              I build my websites now with weaver two nothing flashy or shinny at all, when you have a client ask if you can have some pictures of them, of their workplace, of their work, so that your site doesn't look like a lead generator.

              Small tips on the leads

              Always try to sell your clients exclusive phone-leads, the thing is that the response time on phone-leads is very short and that will help your conversions dramatically... hide your email box and make your visitors use the phone as much as possible

              Goodluck

              Dave
              Good stuff Dave, I have learned also that put your phone# in an img not as text to minimize the scraping...little more of a pain but you don't want to double your clients spam calls.
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          • Profile picture of the author wislndixie
            Originally Posted by bawls View Post

            Nope just make up a legit sounding name like "Smith Brothers Roofing" and build a sniper style 4 page site, with a EMD or NMD...but once you get a cleint just add their logo if they seem legit.
            I'm very new to this type of marketing and would like to explore it in more detail. Pardon my questions if they seem trite but:

            1. What is an EMD or NMD?
            2. What is a billable lead?
            3. If you're not recording conversations as you do, how do you know if a lead turns out to be a sale?

            Thanks,
            Wisln
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            • Profile picture of the author bawls
              Originally Posted by wislndixie View Post

              I'm very new to this type of marketing and would like to explore it in more detail. Pardon my questions if they seem trite but:

              1. What is an EMD or NMD?
              2. What is a billable lead?
              3. If you're not recording conversations as you do, how do you know if a lead turns out to be a sale?

              Thanks,
              Wisln
              EMD exact match domain
              NMD near match domain

              billable meaning you can bill the client for it

              I record the conversations and I don't bill for a "sale" but if they legitimately called about the service.
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          • Profile picture of the author AussieT
            Originally Posted by bawls View Post

            Nope just make up a legit sounding name like "Smith Brothers Roofing" and build a sniper style 4 page site, with a EMD or NMD...but once you get a cleint just add their logo if they seem legit.
            So then I guess if you add their logo you would also change the "Smith Brothers Roofing" to match the logo. And then switch it out to a new client if they stop paying. Correct?
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            • Profile picture of the author bawls
              Originally Posted by AussieT View Post

              So then I guess if you add their logo you would also change the "Smith Brothers Roofing" to match the logo. And then switch it out to a new client if they stop paying. Correct?
              Yes sir, thats the magic of it.
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        • Profile picture of the author davidbatchelor
          Originally Posted by epark732 View Post

          Are you doing all of this to a generic website or landing page?
          Like "best boston roofer" or something? I have always found that generic city+service pages don't convert nearly as well as an actual business page.

          I personally prefer to contact a real business rather than some stock photos and generic copy.

          Thanks
          Have you tried doing it with a special report though?

          Say for example, "FREE Report Reveals The #1 Secret To Selling Your House Quick"
          Signature
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      • Profile picture of the author davidbatchelor
        Originally Posted by bawls View Post

        SEO to a 20(sometimes 30) mile radius
        Google Places,Yahoo and Bing local
        craigslist and backpage
        local business directories (that have a side benefit of ranking Google Places )

        video seo to take up more spaces on the serps.
        Not sure why you would want to limit your market to a small radius.

        For example, wouldn't Real Estate Brokers all over the place want more leads of people looking to list their properties?
        Signature
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        • Profile picture of the author bawls
          Originally Posted by davidbatchelor View Post

          Not sure why you would want to limit your market to a small radius.

          For example, wouldn't Real Estate Brokers all over the place want more leads of people looking to list their properties?
          Only deal with plumbers, roofers etc. and the don't go further than 30 mils most the time.
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      • Profile picture of the author AussieT
        Originally Posted by bawls View Post


        video seo to take up more spaces on the serps.
        Does that mean you don't feel there is much value in video seo other than taking up more search engine real-estate and thus pushing competition to page 2?
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        • Profile picture of the author bawls
          Originally Posted by AussieT View Post

          Does that mean you don't feel there is much value in video seo other than taking up more search engine real-estate and thus pushing competition to page 2?
          nope not really
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  • Profile picture of the author avandrunen
    My partner and I tried to build a local lead gen site and had the largest issue with ranking...we abandoned that particular one but your suggestion of creating a company name may work better.

    I know people don't often like to but I figure ot doesn't hurt to ask...any chance we could see a example of a site you have build and had success with?

    Thanks for the info...nuggets like this will always come in handy.

    Adrian
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    • Profile picture of the author RimaNaj2011
      This is what I've started. You control the site, traffic, seo, content, and you can sell the leads to whoever you want. More control for you and it's less risk for the business owner.
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Water Damage Norwalk ~ 24/7 Service -

      I sold this site off but you will see that it has no backlinks and ranks along with the other 63 sites I built in this niche, the content is rough but it gets leads.
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      • Profile picture of the author mrtrance
        Originally Posted by bawls View Post

        Water Damage Norwalk ~ 24/7 Service -

        I sold this site off but you will see that it has no backlinks and ranks along with the other 63 sites I built in this niche, the content is rough but it gets leads.
        What sort of traffic was the site getting a month?

        How many calls was it generating a month?

        How much were you charging per lead to the business or was it a flat monthly rate?

        Did the site ever rank #1 (right now it shows #2 for "water damage norwalk")? Was the site ranking for many other long tail kws as well?

        When you say 63 sites in the niche you setup same sort of site but targeting different locations correct?

        How come you sold the site? Was it not producing leads or profitable?

        So the site was ranking above the Google Places 7 pack. Was it always able to be there since you did no backlinks?
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        • Profile picture of the author tagr79
          I've been thinking of going this route... Do you just build the websites then, call prospects the moment you get leads from the site?

          SEO to a 20(sometimes 30) mile radius
          - What business address / physical address do you use?
          craigslist and backpage
          - I suppose you post classified ads listings here, do you just leave a phone number or direct people to the site?
          local business directories (that have a side benefit of ranking Google Places )
          - Citations?

          video seo to take up more spaces on the serps.

          Thanks
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          • Profile picture of the author bawls
            Originally Posted by tagr79 View Post

            I've been thinking of going this route... Do you just build the websites then, call prospects the moment you get leads from the site?

            SEO to a 20(sometimes 30) mile radius
            - What business address / physical address do you use?
            craigslist and backpage
            - I suppose you post classified ads listings here, do you just leave a phone number or direct people to the site?
            local business directories (that have a side benefit of ranking Google Places )
            - Citations?

            video seo to take up more spaces on the serps.

            Thanks
            I use a script that tracks and records phone calls that are forwarded to clients business phone. So its a simple matter of listening to phone conversations before you bill them.

            only use street address if also doing Google places

            Image ads classified sites that call to action to a phone #

            people do actually call from local business directories like Yelp etc. and yes they act as citations also.
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        • Profile picture of the author bawls
          Originally Posted by mrtrance View Post

          What sort of traffic was the site getting a month?

          How many calls was it generating a month?

          How much were you charging per lead to the business or was it a flat monthly rate?

          Did the site ever rank #1 (right now it shows #2 for "water damage norwalk")? Was the site ranking for many other long tail kws as well?

          When you say 63 sites in the niche you setup same sort of site but targeting different locations correct?

          How come you sold the site? Was it not producing leads or profitable?

          So the site was ranking above the Google Places 7 pack. Was it always able to be there since you did no backlinks?
          About 2 calls a month that would be of any quality but that is $200 in the restoration niche.

          Yes it ranked #1 but I did not backlink or do any social signals as I was juggling a lot of thing at that time, It was ranked and sold before I could really get to it, but the on-page was ranking it so I was not in a hurry.

          Why does anyone ever sell anything, most those sites were not monetized with clients buying leads yet and before I got to it , I was made a reasonable offer so I sold them all off.

          Most of them ranked well but a few still ranked in the teens, all rank well on bing and yahoo /w no off-page.

          Would like to add that these are not my pearls just a some rough insight to what a person could minimally do to make profit, dare I say, a pretty good living.
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      • Profile picture of the author peter_act
        Picked up a spelling mistake on the site Local Search Marketing and SEO For Results Now - Social Marketing & Already Made Websites by AdShocker

        "DEVELOPEMENT" should be "DEVELOPMENT"

        Cheers
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    I have never done that to protect myself from spam callers .... My clients have never been spam called either..

    I do use images sometimes because it is easy to replace and i am lazy when it comes to building websites...
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

      I have never done that to protect myself from spam callers .... My clients have never been spam called either..

      I do use images sometimes because it is easy to replace and i am lazy when it comes to building websites...
      You are either lucky or I am unlucky...I get a few and whilst using tracking numbers get a enough wrong numbers to start with and hate generating annoying phone calls for people, though they (the client) will put up with it as you are offering them fried gold, still feel like I should minimize it .
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  • Profile picture of the author GregtheWriter
    This is a very cool idea, and is something I have always wanted to explore. There is a lot of professionals that would pay top dollar for high quality leads.

    My question is twofold...

    1. What is the opt-in style for the lead? Do you have them give out name, email and phone number and do you tell them you will be calling them? Or what's the offer for them to give their info up?

    When I was doing all 3 in another niche, I saw only a 2% conversion from it, but never really played around with the design enough.

    2. How does it work selling people's information like this? I know in many scenarios privacy laws say this is a big no-no, even though I understand this style is white hat. Do you need to put in some kind of disclosure?

    Look forward to the answers!
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by GregtheWriter View Post

      This is a very cool idea, and is something I have always wanted to explore. There is a lot of professionals that would pay top dollar for high quality leads.

      My question is twofold...

      1. What is the opt-in style for the lead? Do you have them give out name, email and phone number and do you tell them you will be calling them? Or what's the offer for them to give their info up?

      When I was doing all 3 in another niche, I saw only a 2% conversion from it, but never really played around with the design enough.

      2. How does it work selling people's information like this? I know in many scenarios privacy laws say this is a big no-no, even though I understand this style is white hat. Do you need to put in some kind of disclosure?

      Look forward to the answers!

      I would stay out of any niche that you are gathering data via web form, you probably will starve.

      I and others generally focus on service niches that require people to call and have to call when they need the service..like roofing, plumbing, hvac, pest control, etc.

      The number you advertise with is forwarded to the clients number, then all you do is bill them for the legit phone calls.

      Trying to start a Master Mind on this very thing if I get enough interest.

      http://www.warriorforum.com/local-me...ype-daily.html
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      • Profile picture of the author alnodeya
        Some interesting information being shared here guys, so thank you.

        I have been looking at something similar, however I am trying to to keep it simple .. eg: I wouldn't be able to trace calls, worry about if telephone numbers will get scraped, not worrying about creating a fictional domain name / business.

        I was thinking of simply creating a domain name of roofing_at_your_suburb/town.com, your_town_dentist.com etc, get them ranked, then once they hit the top 3 lease the domain out on a monthly basis. The lessee can then have their information on the site or the site can redirect to their own business site.

        I was looking at charging approx $150 per month for this. My job would be to collect the money and ensure the site ranked highly.

        Any thoughts/experiences in doing this? It sounds similar to what bawls is doing but not as complicated?

        One of the niche business types and locations I have been thinking of has 500 searches per month according to Google Keywords. If only 10% (50 searches) click on the site if top ranked (and we know figures are better than that), and if 10% of them contact the business then they could have potentially 5 customers per month coming via their $150 rented site. Not a bad ROI I think for them.

        Let me know if I am being naive here ... Some have mentioned that they have struggled to rank these type of sites?
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        • Profile picture of the author bawls
          Originally Posted by alnodeya View Post

          Some interesting information being shared here guys, so thank you.

          I have been looking at something similar, however I am trying to to keep it simple .. eg: I wouldn't be able to trace calls, worry about if telephone numbers will get scraped, not worrying about creating a fictional domain name / business.

          I was thinking of simply creating a domain name of roofing_at_your_suburb/town.com, your_town_dentist.com etc, get them ranked, then once they hit the top 3 lease the domain out on a monthly basis. The lessee can then have their information on the site or the site can redirect to their own business site.

          I was looking at charging approx $150 per month for this. My job would be to collect the money and ensure the site ranked highly.

          Any thoughts/experiences in doing this? It sounds similar to what bawls is doing but not as complicated?

          One of the niche business types and locations I have been thinking of has 500 searches per month according to Google Keywords. If only 10% (50 searches) click on the site if top ranked (and we know figures are better than that), and if 10% of them contact the business then they could have potentially 5 customers per month coming via their $150 rented site. Not a bad ROI I think for them.

          Let me know if I am being naive here ... Some have mentioned that they have struggled to rank these type of sites?
          I also do site rental with web sites that don't perform as good lead generators( and are low hanging fruit) , i.e, business where people have to go to the physical location ...but the difference is leads are easier to sell and can generate from multiple sources to sell all to one client...vs. messing about with demands to design a site to conform to a businesses brand..hell might as well just sell SEO on a performance basis at 150 a month.

          It may see a bit complicated but I have done everything in a local market and leads are the most headache free model.
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    @alnodeya, Bawls beat me to it, but imho you're better of selling the leads, it isn't more then a headache then renting it... and it is a much easier sell, if you give 5/10 free leads to a business owner and you have good leads... you'll be in forever and making much more that a $150- a month

    I started with renting out websites, and i rented them for about €200- a month, the niche was wood rot repair a subniche in the painter and carpenter niche.. the guy didn't want to rent the site anymore as he was steering away from wood rot repairs and become more of a indoor painter (something with the weather here).

    Anyhow the site became free again an i decided to sell the leads one by one, we didn't have twilio just yet in Holland (thank God we do now) so what i did was i opened a skype account, bought a phone number and forwarded that phonenumber to a prospect.

    As of now the site steadily makes about €450/€500 per month on selling leads, you see the difference here between selling leads and renting?

    Think about it...


    One of the niche business types and locations I have been thinking of has 500 searches per month according to Google Keywords. If only 10% (50 searches) click on the site if top ranked (and we know figures are better than that), and if 10% of them contact the business then they could have potentially 5 customers per month coming via their $150 rented site. Not a bad ROI I think for them.
    My guess is that this is just for one keyword? If it is then your math is correct but your thinking is wrong.

    First let say that your niche is plumber + city and you will get 500 exact match visitors according to Google, when you have a top spot under Google Places your site will receive 10% that is indeed 50 visitors. 10% of that is 5 buyers per month...

    But that is only for the keyphrase "plumber city" but how about you use all the services plumbers do as a keyword, like sewer + city, gutter + city, leaking faucet + city etc etc. and then you have all your little villages and suburbs around your tarted city, how about if you mix those with the main keyphrase and the service keyphrases.

    You could get a 10 extra leads per month, that is 15 leads, if you can sell them for $25- per lead (and for good converting leads in the service niche, that should not be a problem) you well get 375/400 dollars a month.

    Just saying
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    • Profile picture of the author alnodeya
      Thanks bawls and YGM.

      I suppose I was looking at it as a set and forget method. Once the site has been built I don't need to do much more except keep an eye in the rankings.

      I do see where there is benefit in setting up the Skype account. I take it each of those calls are logged by Skype and therefore you simply charge the business # calls x $ per lead? Is that how you monitor it?

      Thanks for that clarification, I have a better understanding of what you do and the benefits of approaching it that way. I bought another domain today and I may experiment with this concept.

      How do you market this? Tell a potential client that you have built a website that will generate leads their way, tell them also of the forwarding of calls through Skype, then agree on a price per lead?
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      • Profile picture of the author bawls
        Originally Posted by alnodeya View Post

        Thanks bawls and YGM.

        I suppose I was looking at it as a set and forget method. Once the site has been built I don't need to do much more except keep an eye in the rankings.

        I do see where there is benefit in setting up the Skype account. I take it each of those calls are logged by Skype and therefore you simply charge the business # calls x $ per lead? Is that how you monitor it?

        Thanks for that clarification, I have a better understanding of what you do and the benefits of approaching it that way. I bought another domain today and I may experiment with this concept.

        How do you market this? Tell a potential client that you have built a website that will generate leads their way, tell them also of the forwarding of calls through Skype, then agree on a price per lead?
        Not exactly what I do...I use a script that forwards the calls to the clients phone and it also records conversations so I know whats not a lead and what is and so does the client, total transparency.

        Twillio is probably is the best option if you are doing a full business of it but callfire works great for call tracking (and recording) when starting out and is much cheaper than Skype.

        yeah just call service magic clients they are paying a lot for a lead that is shared between 5 people at times.
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        • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
          Originally Posted by bawls View Post

          Not exactly what I do...I use a script that forwards the calls to the clients phone and it also records conversations so I know whats not a lead and what is and so does the client, total transparency.

          Twillio is probably is the best option if you are doing a full business of it but callfire works great for call tracking (and recording) when starting out and is much cheaper than Skype.

          yeah just call service magic clients they are paying a lot for a lead that is shared between 5 people at times.
          Twilio has also the option to record and track calls, i used to use skype as there was no other option in Holland to do it this way, the reason that i used different skye accounts per client was so they could see the stats themselves if needed.

          Skype didn't record though, so i sold leads that where longer then one minute, now i record them, and it is perfectly legal when you make the caller know that his call could be recorded i always use that with the whispermode function.

          This function lets the client know before he takes the call that this is a lead from me, and at the same time the caller gets a message that his call could be recorded for quality control. That makes recording calls legal in almost every country.
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  • Profile picture of the author NewParadigm
    One of the best threads on WF, for real sustainable, protectable business. One other thing to add is keep an eye out for closing businesses, especially at auctions etc... Most of the time they let their customer list just sit vacant. You can offer them a few bucks up front or a %commission if they give you their list. You can also network w/ liquidators/auctioneers who are in contact w/ these businesses before they close and before their domains expire and work a deal for their customer list. A great source of some golden glengarry leads to resell to others in the niche. Another good source would be attorney's that deal in bankruptcy etc...they'd funnel you several businesses that would be interested in monetizing their customer list. If they knew how to do it themselves, they probably wouldn't be going out of biz in the first place, and they'd look at it as free money.
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    • Profile picture of the author alnodeya
      "...Not exactly what I do...I use a script that forwards the calls to the clients phone and it also records conversations so I know whats not a lead and what is and so does the client, total transparency..."

      Pretty sure that is illegal where I am from so that's why I didn't ask more about this option. I'll look into Twillio and Callfire, so I appreciate your help
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      • Profile picture of the author bawls
        Originally Posted by alnodeya View Post

        "...Not exactly what I do...I use a script that forwards the calls to the clients phone and it also records conversations so I know whats not a lead and what is and so does the client, total transparency..."

        Pretty sure that is illegal where I am from so that's why I didn't ask more about this option. I'll look into Twillio and Callfire, so I appreciate your help
        Not sure where your from but most inbound call are recorded for quality assurances, as long as they know it might be recorded, which you have a little audio in the beginning nothing illegal at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author sitefurnace
    Good info here thanks!

    One thing that has always stopped me doing this is that I've never worked out how I could ever create a google local plus listing for a fictitious company? This is the key part of local seo.

    How do you get round the verification process?
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    You can have your site in Google places, if you're lucky (or good) even in the 7 box, the only thing is that you can't claim the listing and update the page, but you can get in with phonenumber website and have reviews to...

    Look at all the places that are not claimed by the owner, they got in their somehow, and i really don't think there is going to be a big difference in traffic in a claimed or an unclaimed page...
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    • Profile picture of the author wislndixie
      Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

      You can have your site in Google places, if you're lucky (or good) even in the 7 box, the only thing is that you can't claim the listing and update the page, but you can get in with phonenumber website and have reviews to...

      Look at all the places that are not claimed by the owner, they got in their somehow, and i really don't think there is going to be a big difference in traffic in a claimed or an unclaimed page...
      What is the "7 box"?
      Wisln
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  • Profile picture of the author sitefurnace
    Yes I suppose that's true.

    So would you still create a fictitious local address for the bogus company. Surely google will want to see that to treat you seriously?
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    Well when i am done with building a site i do use a fake address to promote it on business directories, i always use some address in a industrial part of the city i target, never had a problem...

    I see my sites pop-up in a lot of these boxes, i can't claim them, but i can maintain them with more and more citations and third party reviews. And if you do your job well you will be staying up there, claimed or not claimed...

    And even when you don't get the 7 box, you will get the traffic and links from all those business directories, so see it as a bonus when it happens.
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  • Profile picture of the author sitefurnace
    Thanks for your replies its really quite interesting what you are doing.

    When you choose an address do you choose a real address of an existing building or do you create a fake one. For instance say you choose kiln road in the industrial area and there are genuine buildings/businesses from numbers 1-10 kiln road, do you choose one of these or do you create one at number 11? Do you see what I mean - or am I thinking too hard here?!
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    I use a real street name and a fake building number (that's why i love Google street view ) when the numbers go to 50, i will use 51a or 52b or something like that, never a real number of course...
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  • Profile picture of the author SashaLee
    Hi there,

    One of our clients in America uses Pak-Mail for a street address. $19/month and they only keep it as long as they need to confirm their Google places listing.

    Might be an idea to try.

    All the best,

    Sasha,
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  • Profile picture of the author nickjoselle
    Hi All,

    Great thread...

    My business partner and I also sell leads in the US. We wrestled with the address thing as well - and decided to just avoid it.

    We miss out on the Google Places listing, but are ok with that and just focus on ranking our sites organically. We are able to do this just fine without an address.

    Also, we would agree that getting ranked for suburbs and multiple keywords is the way to go.
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by nickjoselle View Post

      Hi All,

      Great thread...

      My business partner and I also sell leads in the US. We wrestled with the address thing as well - and decided to just avoid it.

      We miss out on the Google Places listing, but are ok with that and just focus on ranking our sites organically. We are able to do this just fine without an address.

      Also, we would agree that getting ranked for suburbs and multiple keywords is the way to go.
      There is a way but of course not going to share here but can be done, just a big process to it.
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  • Profile picture of the author GregtheWriter
    Ah tracing phone calls with like a 1-800 n umber then? Or something along those lines?

    That seems like a legit setup. When you first start off how do you do it? As in say you setup a dentist website but you do not have a dentist office yet as a client. Do you have that number just go wherever so you can track how many calls you are getting/leads and then use that number to sell to the dentist on the idea?

    Another couple questions...

    1. How much do you typically sell the lead for?
    2. Any advice on doing local keyword research? Or just using common sense like if they were a locksmith in Columbus Ohio, ranked for "Columbus Ohio locksmith"?
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by GregtheWriter View Post

      Ah tracing phone calls with like a 1-800 n umber then? Or something along those lines?

      That seems like a legit setup. When you first start off how do you do it? As in say you setup a dentist website but you do not have a dentist office yet as a client. Do you have that number just go wherever so you can track how many calls you are getting/leads and then use that number to sell to the dentist on the idea?

      Another couple questions...

      1. How much do you typically sell the lead for?
      2. Any advice on doing local keyword research? Or just using common sense like if they were a locksmith in Columbus Ohio, ranked for "Columbus Ohio locksmith"?
      What ever service magic sells leads for + $10 is a good model

      yeah just anything that people buy leads for and people cant just go to their business but rather just call.
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    • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
      Originally Posted by GregtheWriter View Post

      Ah tracing phone calls with like a 1-800 n umber then? Or something along those lines?

      That seems like a legit setup. When you first start off how do you do it? As in say you setup a dentist website but you do not have a dentist office yet as a client. Do you have that number just go wherever so you can track how many calls you are getting/leads and then use that number to sell to the dentist on the idea?

      Another couple questions...

      1. How much do you typically sell the lead for?
      2. Any advice on doing local keyword research? Or just using common sense like if they were a locksmith in Columbus Ohio, ranked for "Columbus Ohio locksmith"?
      1 Depends on niche, i sell my leads from €10- to €50- per lead.. i have no dentists as client so maybe someone else can answer that for your

      2 First i look at the services the business provides/ problems it solves, then i look at all the suburbs and villages in a and there you have your keywords. for example

      Main keyword plumber Cincinnati, one of the services the plumber in Cincinnati provides is Sewage camera control and one of the problem it solves is a blocked drain

      Now i will look at the suburbs/villages in a 25km/15ml radius from Cincinnati ( will only do a view as example)

      Cincinnati Plumber
      Cincinnati Plumbers
      Cincinnati Emergency Cincinnati
      Cincinnati Cheap Plumber
      blocked drain Cincinnati
      Sewage CameraControl Cincinnati

      Bridgetown Plumber
      Bridgetown Plumbers
      Bridgetown Emergency Bridgetown
      Bridgetown Cheap Plumber
      blocked drain Bridgetown
      Sewage CameraControl Bridgetown

      Kenwood Plumber
      Kenwood Plumbers
      Kenwood Emergency Kenwood
      Kenwood Cheap Plumber
      blocked drain Kenwood
      Sewage CameraControl Kenwood

      Sharonville Plumber
      Sharonville Plumbers
      Sharonville Emergency Sharonvile
      Sharonville Cheap Plumber
      blocked drain Sharonville
      Sewage CameraControl Sharonville

      As you can see if you as more suburbs and services/ problems you will have a lot of keywords fast, don't matter if Google shows traffic or them or not, you will get traffic from these longtail local keywords
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      • Profile picture of the author mrtrance
        Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

        1 Depends on niche, i sell my leads from €10- to €50- per lead.. i have no dentists as client so maybe someone else can answer that for your

        2 First i look at the services the business provides/ problems it solves, then i look at all the suburbs and villages in a and there you have your keywords. for example

        Main keyword plumber Cincinnati, one of the services the plumber in Cincinnati provides is Sewage camera control and one of the problem it solves is a blocked drain

        Now i will look at the suburbs/villages in a 25km/15ml radius from Cincinnati ( will only do a view as example)

        Cincinnati Plumber
        Cincinnati Plumbers
        Cincinnati Emergency Cincinnati
        Cincinnati Cheap Plumber
        blocked drain Cincinnati
        Sewage CameraControl Cincinnati

        Bridgetown Plumber
        Bridgetown Plumbers
        Bridgetown Emergency Bridgetown
        Bridgetown Cheap Plumber
        blocked drain Bridgetown
        Sewage CameraControl Bridgetown

        Kenwood Plumber
        Kenwood Plumbers
        Kenwood Emergency Kenwood
        Kenwood Cheap Plumber
        blocked drain Kenwood
        Sewage CameraControl Kenwood

        Sharonville Plumber
        Sharonville Plumbers
        Sharonville Emergency Sharonvile
        Sharonville Cheap Plumber
        blocked drain Sharonville
        Sewage CameraControl Sharonville

        As you can see if you as more suburbs and services/ problems you will have a lot of keywords fast, don't matter if Google shows traffic or them or not, you will get traffic from these longtail local keywords
        How would you incorporate all those "city/suburb + service" keywords within your website without looking like you are spamming? Do you just setup a static front page with some content and use the various cities and service keywords spread out in the content. Then when you build backlinks you use all the various kw combos as your anchor text for your backlinks to start ranking for those long tails?
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      • Profile picture of the author rugman
        Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

        1 Depends on niche, i sell my leads from €10- to €50- per lead.. i have no dentists as client so maybe someone else can answer that for your

        2 First i look at the services the business provides/ problems it solves, then i look at all the suburbs and villages in a and there you have your keywords. for example

        Main keyword plumber Cincinnati, one of the services the plumber in Cincinnati provides is Sewage camera control and one of the problem it solves is a blocked drain

        Now i will look at the suburbs/villages in a 25km/15ml radius from Cincinnati ( will only do a view as example)

        Cincinnati Plumber
        Cincinnati Plumbers
        Cincinnati Emergency Cincinnati
        Cincinnati Cheap Plumber
        blocked drain Cincinnati
        Sewage CameraControl Cincinnati

        Bridgetown Plumber
        Bridgetown Plumbers
        Bridgetown Emergency Bridgetown
        Bridgetown Cheap Plumber
        blocked drain Bridgetown
        Sewage CameraControl Bridgetown

        Kenwood Plumber
        Kenwood Plumbers
        Kenwood Emergency Kenwood
        Kenwood Cheap Plumber
        blocked drain Kenwood
        Sewage CameraControl Kenwood

        Sharonville Plumber
        Sharonville Plumbers
        Sharonville Emergency Sharonvile
        Sharonville Cheap Plumber
        blocked drain Sharonville
        Sewage CameraControl Sharonville

        As you can see if you as more suburbs and services/ problems you will have a lot of keywords fast, don't matter if Google shows traffic or them or not, you will get traffic from these longtail local keywords
        I just sent you a PM on this - please take a look if you have the time. Thx!
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    I build small sites for the suburbs within wordpress with this plugin, the categories are the cities and i use the tags to connect one group of service keywords and suburbs/vilagges if that makes any sense.

    So this group of keywords would go into the category Bridgetown

    Bridgetown Plumber
    Bridgetown Plumbers
    Bridgetown Emergency Bridgetown
    Bridgetown Cheap Plumber
    blocked drain Bridgetown
    Sewage CameraControl Bridgetown
    And this group would go into the category Keywood

    Kenwood Plumber
    Kenwood Plumbers
    Kenwood Emergency Kenwood
    Kenwood Cheap Plumber
    blocked drain Kenwood
    Sewage CameraControl Kenwood
    Then i make one set of content for all the keywords and just spin it to about 30% uniqueness and use that for all the internal mini sites. You don't have to be afraid for dup content as there is no such thing.

    When you do the connection right, people that land on your site would not have a clue, and no it doesn't have to look spammy at all. Having all those keywords doesn't mean you have to create content for each and every one of them. You can use them in tags, in your title and descriptions of your SEO plugins, you can use them for your images and videos... Use your imagination
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    • Profile picture of the author MrJeff
      Which spinner or spin service do you use or recommend?
      Also, I do have a twilio account for an sms plugin I purchased some time ago. What is available for twilio as far as call forwarding and tracking? Is it expensive?
      `Thanks-
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      • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
        Originally Posted by MrJeff View Post

        Which spinner or spin service do you use or recommend?
        Also, I do have a twilio account for an sms plugin I purchased some time ago. What is available for twilio as far as call forwarding and tracking? Is it expensive?
        `Thanks-
        I use spinnerchief which is free, look i do not spin my content as what people are used to when it comes to IM promotions, there is no need for it really.. you can have great results with a uniqueness of 30% (did i hear some IMers puke? :p) If you use content for promotions then 50% is good enough... really on a local level dup content is the last thing you should be woried about.

        On the plugin, i have no idea on how the SMS plugin works as Twilio doesn't provide a SMS service in Holland, yet.

        Twilio has all the gadgets you need for selling leads, it tracks the time of your calls, it records is, Twilio provides whispermode, so you can tell your client that the call that they are about to receive is provided by you (and at the same time you can tell the one who is calling that his call can be recorded for quality reasons)...

        Those are the only gadgets you need, i know that there are some other services like callfire and such, i have no idea about them so if someone who works with them would like to chime in, please do.

        I love Twilio as it is cheap and basically the only company that serves my country.

        @ Rugman You have a PM back
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  • Profile picture of the author bwh1
    Google Places,Yahoo and Bing local
    How do you handle VERIFICATION if you ain't have a physical address yourself in that area?

    G.
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    • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
      Originally Posted by bwh1 View Post

      How do you handle VERIFICATION if you ain't have a physical address yourself in that area?

      G.
      You don't
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      • Profile picture of the author bwh1
        Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

        You don't
        Ehm, maybe I'm a bit slow today.

        You don't do what?

        Verifying the G+ local listing from YOUR site and let it unlisted (what's the benefit of that?)..... or

        You don't NEED to verify YOUR G+ profile listed (that would be new to me)

        We talk here about a website for a fake business for lead generation, do we.

        G.
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        • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
          Originally Posted by bwh1 View Post

          Ehm, maybe I'm a bit slow today.

          You don't do what?

          Verifying the G+ local listing from YOUR site and let it unlisted (what's the benefit of that?)..... or

          You don't NEED to verify YOUR G+ profile listed (that would be new to me)

          We talk here about a website for a fake business for lead generation, do we.

          G.
          Yes you let it unlisted, have a look at how many listings in the top 7 are not claimed at all and still get the traffic from those top positions. just saying
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          • Profile picture of the author bwh1
            Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

            Yes you let it unlisted, have a look at how many listings in the top 7 are not claimed at all and still get the traffic from those top positions. just saying
            I see.

            I always thought that Google fetch those over directory listings on their own.

            So when you fake a listing, Google has nothing to double check in directory listing like YP, Manta etc. what is as far as I know a important factor to rank in the 7 box.

            Somehow I have a feeling that Google rank verified listings with a track record well above unverified fake profiles.

            So the question remains, how can you get a unverified listing in the 7 BOX in a reasonable sized city?

            Thanks anyway to pointing this out.

            G.
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            • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
              Originally Posted by bwh1 View Post

              I see.

              I always thought that Google fetch those over directory listings on their own.

              So when you fake a listing, Google has nothing to double check in directory listing like YP, Manta etc. what is as far as I know a important factor to rank in the 7 box.

              Somehow I have a feeling that Google rank verified listings with a track record well above unverified fake profiles.

              So the question remains, how can you get a unverified listing in the 7 BOX in a reasonable sized city?

              Thanks anyway to pointing this out.

              G.
              Use a lot of citations, not only in directories but leave address under every piece of content that you put out there to promote your site, put it in your linkswheels, your press releases, your articles (yes article marketing is a good thing for citations) youtube video's, FB fanpage, twitter account, if possible in blog comments, comments on other FB accounts, post in Google+ etc etc etc

              If you wanna go Blackhat you can use tools like SEnuke and scrapebox, fake reviews, but even then it is still not a sure thing you get in the 7 box, but then again even if your verified you have no certainty that your listing is going to be in that box.

              I see it as an extra bonus if it happens, adding the citations isn't that much extra work anyways,
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by bwh1 View Post

      How do you handle VERIFICATION if you ain't have a physical address yourself in that area?

      G.
      blackhat the big G and the others just take a tracking #
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by bwh1 View Post

      How do you handle VERIFICATION if you ain't have a physical address yourself in that area?

      G.
      um fabrication?
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      • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
        Major cities have virtual offices where they can forward mail to you.

        You get to use their physical address.

        Just Google virtual office then city.

        Best,
        Ewen
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    • Profile picture of the author MsMogulNike
      Great share!
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  • Profile picture of the author rugman
    Callfire works great - fairly cheap - local numbers - great reports and whisper feature.

    @yellowgreenmedia - thanks for the PM - great help to me!
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  • Profile picture of the author davidbatchelor
    Originally Posted by bawls View Post

    I have been hustling offline to online for around 12 years now, but like anyone who makes a real effort can probably tell it is getting increasingly more difficult to sell traditional online services to offline business, and probably will just keep going that direction.

    So I have taken to just selling leads to local services such as roofers,plumbers, etc.

    This is the easiest cold call you will ever make, they not only are more than happy to buy your leads but will conform to any manner to which you sell them.

    So if you can actually help a business with their online promotion, you should be able to generate leads.

    will field any questions from anyone who has them.
    This is definitely something I have been thinking about. If business owners lack the understanding of how having a online presence can really help their business, instead of trying to educate them, simply offer them leads.

    Though I would target high ticket items with a healthy margin like real estate brokers and insurance etc. As I am pretty confident I could charge them more for a qualified lead then the local plumber who has to only replace a couple of washers on a tap etc.
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    • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
      Originally Posted by davidbatchelor View Post

      This is definitely something I have been thinking about. If business owners lack the understanding of how having a online presence can really help their business, instead of trying to educate them, simply offer them leads.

      Though I would target high ticket items with a healthy margin like real estate brokers and insurance etc. As I am pretty confident I could charge them more for a qualified lead then the local plumber who has to only replace a couple of washers on a tap etc.
      Each there own i guess, i rather work with plumbers/carpenter/contractors/painters as i know that world inside out, and you are hugely mistaken if you think that these businesses have no "healthy margins", sure they are not selling a houses (but who is these days?), but a even a moderate contractor's job can run in the thousands of dollars/euro's in revenue.

      And they are more then happy to pay for my leads, and it is like Bawls sad, it is such a easy sell, they don't have to wait months for results, there are no fee's only the price of a lead... You can't make it easier for them.


      Dave
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      • Profile picture of the author npk
        So let me get this straight:

        1. Set up website.
        2. Traffic--either SEO or PPC
        3. Sell leads to end user

        This is it, really? Better to use 800# type leads? Those calls are sent directly to end user/client, or internet generated only?

        I can see the value of the 800#, because it's the easiest for the masses. Many, many people aren't internet-savvy enough to fill out a form, so how do you qualify the phone generated leads?
        Signature
        Freelance appointment setter/copywriter.
        I can help with getting you leads and/or sales scripts.
        I also broker lists, both business and consumer.
        PM for details.
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      • Profile picture of the author davidbatchelor
        Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

        Each there own i guess, i rather work with plumbers/carpenter/contractors/painters as i know that world inside out, and you are hugely mistaken

        Dave
        Wow, those are big words 'hugely mistaken' Dave, especially if you bothered to actually read in context what I wrote instead of coming on here and calling someone out, how unprofessional is that?

        With a house as per my example, how much money would they make on that? And let's say a plumber who has to change a few washers on a tap?

        I rest my case.
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        • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
          Originally Posted by davidbatchelor View Post

          Wow, those are big words 'hugely mistaken' Dave, especially if you bothered to actually read in context what I wrote instead of coming on here and calling someone out, how unprofessional is that?

          With a house as per my example, how much money would they make on that? And let's say a plumber who has to change a few washers on a tap?

          I rest my case.
          I didn't call you out at all mate:confused:, as a matter a fact YOU'RE the one who is acting all condescending about the service industry, the plumber that just " change a few washers on a tap" so if someone here is calling someone out is is you.

          The only thing i sad that real estate isn't my thing and i rather stick with what i know, and yeah your hugely mistaken about the margins of of local service businesses... you showed by your condescending remark about the few washers on a tap.


          Really man, try to read before you attack someone... Good luck with all the houses you're selling..

          Dave
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          • Profile picture of the author davidbatchelor
            Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

            I didn't call you out at all mate:confused:, as a matter a fact YOU'RE the one who is acting all condescending about the service industry, the plumber that just " change a few washers on a tap" so if someone here is calling someone out is is you.

            The only thing i sad that real estate isn't my thing and i rather stick with what i know, and yeah your hugely mistaken about the margins of of local service businesses... you showed by your condescending remark about the few washers on a tap.


            Really man, try to read before you attack someone... Good luck with all the houses you're selling..

            Dave
            Real estate is doing very well in this part of the world or are you assuming to be an expert on that as well?
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            • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
              Originally Posted by davidbatchelor View Post

              Real estate is doing very well in this part of the world or are you assuming to be an expert on that as well?
              No just follow the world news, guess you live in just that part in the world that doesn't feel the crisis like the rest of us idiots..

              This discussion between you and me is over.

              Good luck to you and all the homes you sell

              Dave
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              • Profile picture of the author davidbatchelor
                Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

                No just follow the world news, guess you live in just that part in the world that doesn't feel the crisis like the rest of us idiots..

                This discussion between you and me is over.

                Good luck to you and all the homes you sell

                Dave
                When did I say I sell homes?

                It would be smart to learn about the New Zealand real estate market before commenting and that way as you said, you wouldn't come across as an idiot.

                I agree ... This discussion between you and me is over.
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                • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
                  Originally Posted by davidbatchelor View Post

                  When did I say I sell homes?

                  It would be smart to learn about the New Zealand real estate market before commenting and that way as you said, you wouldn't come across as an idiot.

                  I agree ... This discussion between you and me is over.
                  Like you did about plumbers and other local businesses right?
                  Thanks for the tip.
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                  • Profile picture of the author davidbatchelor
                    Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

                    Like you did about plumbers and other local businesses right?
                    Thanks for the tip.
                    Lol, you're funny. First you say 'end of discussion' and then you carry it on. so which is it?

                    And yes, I did seen as I know my local market.
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              • Profile picture of the author horusrebus
                Dave that guy was rude you handled that well.
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  • Profile picture of the author midasmarketing
    I prefer to use a real building number and add a suite. I'm sure its not hard for google to see if an address is a fabrication so this way is better. I also have been able to phone verify g places listings this way if they have sat awhile and I have done enough citations before I attempt to claim and/or create a listing.
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  • Profile picture of the author MrJeff
    Come on now. Lets be nice. This is a great thread so lets not butcher it up. A lot of great information here.
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  • Profile picture of the author MrJeff
    My question is would it be easier to sell each lead or to have a set monthly price. $30 or $40 per lead or a flat monthly rate regardless of the number of leads?
    And for businesses such as plumbers/carpenter/contractors/painters what would a reasonable flat rate be?
    Thanks.
    -Jeff
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel LaRusso
    I would like to get started in this area myself, and I'm wondering about the Service Magic part, where you said you sort of scope them out to see what Service Magic charges for a lead, then add $10. How do you do that? Is there a way to look at Service Magic to figure out a good niche to start out with as well?
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    That PDF is a great resource, not only on price but also for your niche and keyword research
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  • Profile picture of the author betterwtveter
    Yes generating leads for these companies can get you a lot of money because I use to be a contractor myself. These leads can cost anywhere from $30-$60.
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  • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
    Question:

    How much do you charge per lead?

    Better question: How do you figure out what this price will be?

    Also: do you actually charge X amount PER LEAD, or do you charge X amount PER MONTH, or ???

    Thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
      Originally Posted by SoundsGood View Post

      Question:

      How much do you charge per lead?

      Better question: How do you figure out what this price will be?

      Also: do you actually charge X amount PER LEAD, or do you charge X amount PER MONTH, or ???

      Thanks!
      This really depends on the niche and the cost to create the leads... you can us the MS PDF as guidance, i charge between €10- and €150- per lead (ext tax)...

      For charging the client i use two methods, for new clients: they can buy a package of leads that they have to pay upfront, when the client and i have established a trustful working relationship i will give them the option to pay once a month for the leads they have received.

      Some prefer to pay for leads upfront because they only can only handle an X amount of leads per month, these are most of the time the smaller companies...
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      • Profile picture of the author AussieT
        Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

        This really depends on the niche and the cost to create the leads... you can us the MS PDF as guidance, i charge between €10- and €150- per lead (ext tax)...

        For charging the client i use two methods, for new clients: they can buy a package of leads that they have to pay upfront, when the client and i have established a trustful working relationship i will give them the option to pay once a month for the leads they have received.

        Some prefer to pay for leads upfront because they only can only handle an X amount of leads per month, these are most of the time the smaller companies...
        Typically how many leads would you pre-sell in a package upfront, 10/20/ more?
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    I have packages of 10, 25, 50 and 100 leads... the higher the amount of leads the cheaper the leads per lead gets, that is something that i do to sell the bigger packages
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    • Profile picture of the author Bennette
      Thanks for sharing the information Bawls and Dave. I have a site that's on the 1st page/ 1st position but isn't getting any calls. I will keep tweaking it until I get it right.
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      • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
        Originally Posted by Bennette View Post

        Thanks for sharing the information Bawls and Dave. I have a site that's on the 1st page/ 1st position but isn't getting any calls. I will keep tweaking it until I get it right.
        Is it getting traffic?

        If you PM me the URL i will be happy to take a look for you
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        • Profile picture of the author Bennette
          Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

          Is it getting traffic?

          If you PM me the URL i will be happy to take a look for you
          Hi Dave I just sent you a PM
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  • Profile picture of the author star007
    Wow!, a lot of good information here. Thanks. I recently attended a webinar that promoted the Pay Per Call format. It sound much like your system in some respects. With the pay per call system, they actually transferred the calls from the owners website to the potential client's phone for 7 days, at not costs, and then after seven days, if the client didn't want to continue getting and buying the leads, the calls stopped. The system's developer says it makes a ton of money and has many people currently using it. It sounded interesting and cost about $500. I have so many other things I am pursuing at this time but might give it a shot if offered in the future, depending upon whether or not I call afford it then. Good luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by star007 View Post

      Wow!, a lot of good information here. Thanks. I recently attended a webinar that promoted the Pay Per Call format. It sound much like your system in some respects. With the pay per call system, they actually transferred the calls from the owners website to the potential client's phone for 7 days, at not costs, and then after seven days, if the client didn't want to continue getting and buying the leads, the calls stopped. The system's developer says it makes a ton of money and has many people currently using it. It sounded interesting and cost about $500. I have so many other things I am pursuing at this time but might give it a shot if offered in the future, depending upon whether or not I call afford it then. Good luck!
      Well Star just like most paid programs, you probably don't need them. It just takes a bit of deductive reasoning / reverse engineering.

      Ill make money if X happens and need to do Y to make X happen, and so on.
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanedmunds
    The only thing I am not understanding is how to capture any leads without yet having a client to direct them to. The incoming calls would need to go somewhere...
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    • Profile picture of the author bawls
      Originally Posted by ryanedmunds View Post

      The only thing I am not understanding is how to capture any leads without yet having a client to direct them to. The incoming calls would need to go somewhere...
      so send it to someone who can use it (just forward the #) then call them after a few good ones and ask them if they want to buy them.
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    • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
      Originally Posted by ryanedmunds View Post

      The only thing I am not understanding is how to capture any leads without yet having a client to direct them to. The incoming calls would need to go somewhere...
      I sent them to a voicemail when i have no client for the leads, and show those voicemails as proof to my prospects.
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  • Profile picture of the author johninmn
    Bawls and Dave thanks for all your knowledge in this thread. Bawls I signed up for your Mastermind and Dave I am planning on signing up for your WSO. I do have a question for all those reading this thread.

    Is there a reputable company that you can outsource all of this to? I am looking for a company that will build the lead gen site and do the SEO for it as well. Through searches on here I have found members that will build the site and others that will rank it but I haven't found 1 that will do both. Can anyone recommend someone to do both of these?

    Thanks.

    John
    Signature

    mobile mobile mobile mobile etc....

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    • Profile picture of the author StarkContrast
      Johninmn, have you built and ranked any of these sites first to see the work involved? I ask that because it's much easier to do at least one of them so you see what it takes to do it.

      Are you actively advertising for such a person yet or just searching around? I'm sure they exist but you're right, I haven't seen the two skills together offering it as a service.
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    • Profile picture of the author AussieT
      It might be wiser to have 2 different people doing each job so they do not decide they can quit and do it all themselves


      Originally Posted by johninmn View Post

      Bawls and Dave thanks for all your knowledge in this thread. Bawls I signed up for your Mastermind and Dave I am planning on signing up for your WSO. I do have a question for all those reading this thread.

      Is there a reputable company that you can outsource all of this to? I am looking for a company that will build the lead gen site and do the SEO for it as well. Through searches on here I have found members that will build the site and others that will rank it but I haven't found 1 that will do both. Can anyone recommend someone to do both of these?

      Thanks.

      John
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    • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
      I would not use a company to be honest, what i would do is outsource in pieces to individuals that you train yourself...

      Unfortunately i still haven't find a cheap VA that knows Dutch, but if i was doing sites in the UK/US i would have one outsourcer to build my sites (on freelance pay) i would have a VA that would maintain my blog/web 2.0 network and also submit my sites to business directories and one to write content (freelance pay)

      You will probably save some $$$ and you can train your people just like you want them...

      I only have two, cus i have to write and spin all my content myself









      Originally Posted by johninmn View Post

      Bawls and Dave thanks for all your knowledge in this thread. Bawls I signed up for your Mastermind and Dave I am planning on signing up for your WSO. I do have a question for all those reading this thread.

      Is there a reputable company that you can outsource all of this to? I am looking for a company that will build the lead gen site and do the SEO for it as well. Through searches on here I have found members that will build the site and others that will rank it but I haven't found 1 that will do both. Can anyone recommend someone to do both of these?

      Thanks.

      John
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      • Profile picture of the author tagr79
        To Bawls and Dave.

        How much does the call tracking usually costs per client/number. I have a client and I'm between charging per lead or per sale.

        My concern is the call tracking costs and if would be justifiable to run ppc ads to drive leads if I'm going to charge him per sale.

        Thanks
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      • Profile picture of the author johninmn
        Thanks for the feedback guys!!

        So my next question would be: Can you all recommend someone to do the site building and someone to do the SEO?

        Thanks much.

        John

        Originally Posted by AussieT View Post

        It might be wiser to have 2 different people doing each job so they do not decide they can quit and do it all themselves
        Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

        I would not use a company to be honest, what i would do is outsource in pieces to individuals that you train yourself...

        Unfortunately i still haven't find a cheap VA that knows Dutch, but if i was doing sites in the UK/US i would have one outsourcer to build my sites (on freelance pay) i would have a VA that would maintain my blog/web 2.0 network and also submit my sites to business directories and one to write content (freelance pay)

        You will probably save some $$$ and you can train your people just like you want them...

        I only have two, cus i have to write and spin all my content myself
        Signature

        mobile mobile mobile mobile etc....

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        • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
          Originally Posted by johninmn View Post

          Thanks for the feedback guys!!

          So my next question would be: Can you all recommend someone to do the site building and someone to do the SEO?

          Thanks much.

          John
          I found my people on easyoutsource.com, before you hire them let them do a small task first and see if they are capable of taking instructions. It can be very frustrating when a VA doesn't do what you ask him/her to do.
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  • Profile picture of the author yixar
    How long would it take to rank one of these sites for a low competitive keyword?
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    Twilio is very cheap, i pay $1- per phone number €0,03- per minute to landline, and €0.10 per minute to mobile, and recording the call is €0,01 per minute i belief

    Not that expensive if you make sure that you forward to a landline
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    • Profile picture of the author tagr79
      Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

      Twilio is very cheap, i pay $1- per phone number €0,03- per minute to landline, and €0.10 per minute to mobile, and recording the call is €0,01 per minute i belief

      Not that expensive if you make sure that you forward to a landline
      Thanks for the reply, I'm starting a campaign for garage builders who are just starting out themselves, I took this to test the waters myself. I will probably be paid on commission on close and not on a per lead basis that's why I asked about the phone rates, to be sure that the campaign is profitable for my company after all expenses in running the campaigns for them.

      Is it more expensive to track calls if they're forwarded to a cellphone?

      And, how can I verify if whether or not the lead converted to sale for which I'll be entitled a commission for if I'm working on commission?

      Thanks again and regards,
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      • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
        Originally Posted by tagr79 View Post

        Thanks for the reply, I'm starting a campaign for garage builders who are just starting out themselves, I took this to test the waters myself. I will probably be paid on commission on close and not on a per lead basis that's why I asked about the phone rates, to be sure that the campaign is profitable for my company after all expenses in running the campaigns for them.

        Is it more expensive to track calls if they're forwarded to a cellphone?

        And, how can I verify if whether or not the lead converted to sale for which I'll be entitled a commission for if I'm working on commission?

        Thanks again and regards,
        If you work on commission you will have a hard time tracking to see iof a lead converted or not, the things you can do is to trust your clients that they be honest or call the leads yourself to see if they bought something.

        That is why i don't do commission's, you really need to trust the clients you're working with, and i am not so good with trusting people when it comes to money.

        If you take the effort or the risk you could make money then with a flat rate per lead
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    • Profile picture of the author warrenonline
      Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

      Twilio is very cheap, i pay $1- per phone number €0,03- per minute to landline, and €0.10 per minute to mobile, and recording the call is €0,01 per minute i belief

      Not that expensive if you make sure that you forward to a landline
      Great thread, guys. Thanks a lot.

      Just want to ask something about the above.

      I've checked out Twilio and it looks like, as you said, Dave, they charge per minute. So that means, when you forward the Twilio number to your client, whenever someone phones that Twilio number, you get charged for as long as they talk to each other, right? What happens if you get a client who doesn't mind having a nice, long conversation with everyone who calls him up? Doesn't that start to add up? Also, a lot of people will actually save that Twilio number because they think that's actually your client's number, so every time they call him, they'll just call that Twilio number.

      As far as I can see, there's no safety net with that, or am I misreading this? Someone could call up that number, and who knows, they might talk to the contractor for two, three hours. That probably won't happen too often, but you can imagine a scenario where it could. And even if there aren't too many three-hour calls, a chatty client who's local with everyone who calls him, might enjoy having a half-hour call, hour-long call with everyone. Someone finds the Twilio number: "Hi. John's Plumbing." "John, is that you? This is Frank from Frank's Pizza." "Frank, long time! How you doing?" "I'm good!" "You see the game last weekend?" "Blah blah blah blah" and you're getting charged for their whole hour-long conversation! And then every time Frank needs to contact John, he's going to call that Twilio number.

      Just want to get your thoughts on that, as whatever billing model you use (charge them for a package of leads, charge them per month, etc.), isn't the above going to eat into everything? Or am I misreading this?

      Thanks.
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      • Profile picture of the author Riz
        When someone is running a business the likelihood of them having such long conversations is next to nothing. If they know someone well enough to merit such a long conversation during work hours then that call will not be made to the lead gen number as they will probably have their real number.

        Now lets imagine even if this extreme circumstance did occur then that 1 hour call will cost you a whopping $1.80 for the hour. You just charged the client for that lead anything between $10 to $55. Not a bad return in my books

        This type of thinking just causes analysis paralysis and stops you from moving forward.

        Riz


        Originally Posted by waterprism View Post

        Great thread, guys. Thanks a lot.

        Just want to ask something about the above.

        I've checked out Twilio and it looks like, as you said, Dave, they charge per minute. So that means, when you forward the Twilio number to your client, whenever someone phones that Twilio number, you get charged for as long as they talk to each other, right? What happens if you get a client who doesn't mind having a nice, long conversation with everyone who calls him up? Doesn't that start to add up? Also, a lot of people will actually save that Twilio number because they think that's actually your client's number, so every time they call him, they'll just call that Twilio number.

        As far as I can see, there's no safety net with that, or am I misreading this? Someone could call up that number, and who knows, they might talk to the contractor for two, three hours. That probably won't happen too often, but you can imagine a scenario where it could. And even if there aren't too many three-hour calls, a chatty client who's local with everyone who calls him, might enjoy having a half-hour call, hour-long call with everyone. Someone finds the Twilio number: "Hi. John's Plumbing." "John, is that you? This is Frank from Frank's Pizza." "Frank, long time! How you doing?" "I'm good!" "You see the game last weekend?" "Blah blah blah blah" and you're getting charged for their whole hour-long conversation! And then every time Frank needs to contact John, he's going to call that Twilio number.

        Just want to get your thoughts on that, as whatever billing model you use (charge them for a package of leads, charge them per month, etc.), isn't the above going to eat into everything? Or am I misreading this?

        Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Handdy
    Have any of your customers got back to you on the quality of leads? From what several of my customers tell me, the quality such leads is not that great. It is the same case with bought lists for email newsletters. Bought lists are much worse actually.
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    • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
      Originally Posted by Handdy View Post

      Have any of your customers got back to you on the quality of leads? From what several of my customers tell me, the quality such leads is not that great. It is the same case with bought lists for email newsletters. Bought lists are much worse actually.
      I don't use email leads, they suck. I only sell phoneleads, the thing is when your doing lead generation for service based businesses is that the lead needs to be in contact with the business ASAP, and if you use email then your leads get cold fast.

      But when a lead calls the business directly the changes of converting will increase dramatically, that is why i always teach my clients to pick up the damn phone when it rings

      Sometimes these small contractors can't be bothered to pick up their phone during business hours, i always tell to have their girlfriend/wife/mother pick up the phone... Also they can't nag about bad leads, cus i told them to pick up the damn phone

      Sometimes you have to educate and use though love on your clients, there sometimes just like little children
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  • Profile picture of the author kposs
    Great information guys!

    A couple of questions.

    1. For the phone leads, I presume that a customer might bookmark a site and call the same number after their initial contact with the company. So, how do you handle these potentially 'duplicate' leads?

    2. Can anyone give me an idea of how many sites you have and the ballpark number of leads that you sell in a month? Just trying to get an idea of the number of sites I might need to reach specific goals.

    thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
      Originally Posted by kposs View Post

      Great information guys!

      A couple of questions.

      1. For the phone leads, I presume that a customer might bookmark a site and call the same number after their initial contact with the company. So, how do you handle these potentially 'duplicate' leads?
      You record your calls and you delete the double leads as you call them, tell your client that he/she needs to give the customer a direct phonenumber or cell number, so that they don't keep on calling the lead gen number

      2. Can anyone give me an idea of how many sites you have and the ballpark number of leads that you sell in a month? Just trying to get an idea of the number of sites I might need to reach specific goals.

      thanks!
      I have sites that get one lead per month and i have sites that do 30 leads per month... so without knowing your niche, city keywords...
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Yep this is what I've been saying for a while now. Lead gen is ridiculously profitable.

    I have the luxury of my brother being a contractor, and being friends with dozens of contractors/business owners in my area.

    When I first got involved in lead gen, I was merely trying to generate leads for my brother. And I'll be honest, if you don't know a thing about local marketing, its a nightmare getting started.

    I didn't even have any idea how profitable it was untill I was generating calls. After about 6 months I was generating 8-12 calls a week. My brother would sell 3-4 jobs, and cut me about $500 per job. So I was making $1,500-$2,000 a week and he was making about double that for himself.

    But mind you, this started out with family, and on a commission basis. Not selling individual leads to strangers or doing any cold calling. So I had a lucky start in that respect.

    Its to the point where my method is refined down perfectly now. I am able to outsource so many aspects of my funnel, so efficiently, that I've reduced my workload to roughly 1/4 of what it use to be. Not only that, but I've also reduced many of my expenses down to dirt cheap. Although I still do the sites myself, it only cost me about $500 to get my funnels started. I typically invest that money over the first 3 months, after that point the sites become self sufficient and start generating revenue. Then I continually reinvest 20% of my profits to keep the funnels growing.

    Whats happening now is my brother is finding/connecting me with more contractors, I'm setting up more sites that I control 100%, and I'm branching out into niches I don't know a thing about. I do verify all my local listings and use the contractors address for that. But the numbers/tracking is all under my control.

    I'm not sure what my end game is as I'm only 3 sites into this right now. But I want to create more sites, and consider selling them off 12 months down the road. Then I may stop and invest all that money into the biz me and my brother run. My goal will be to hire more salesman, better management, and sit back and oversee everything with my brother. I already have a cousin who owns his own landscaping biz, works 2 days a week and pulls in a nice 6 figures a year. So I know its possible and I ultimately value my time more than money. I'll never stop working, I just need the time to do what I want in life (spend time with family/travel/workout/eat/sleep/play music) without going broke.

    -Red
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  • Profile picture of the author TrumpiaTim
    This sounds pretty interesting, anything thoughts on combining with a marketing platform so you're selling both leads AND a platform to push their marketing out as well whether its via SMS, Email, or Social Media.

    This way you can truly maximize your sale
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    • Profile picture of the author Docpluto
      "TRUMPIA"- NEVER USE THIS COMPANY, HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE ON TOP OF MISREPRESENTATION.
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    That is where you have to educate your client, make sure that he gives the prospects his direct phone number...

    About the lengths of the calls from my experience the average call is about 7/10 minutes, just calculate those cost in your lead price if things get out of hand.
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  • Profile picture of the author warrenonline
    Thanks, Dave.

    Riz, I'd hardly put questions that relate to business cost into the analysis paralysis bracket. As you can see, by asking that question I got workable information about the average call lengths Dave's been seeing and a good idea to chew on regarding educating clients about that Twilio number, something that hadn't been mentioned in this thread before. That "whopping" $1.80 could become $3.60 and then $7.20 and then $9 if the customer keeps calling up that Twilio number every time he needs to talk to the contractor. If the lead is $10, that's a cost to be aware of.

    My father was a contractor, and I can tell you, when a client is putting thousands of dollars into a job, the likelihood of such long conversations is very far from next to nothing. There were some clients who would call him every day with new questions, new worries, new ideas, last minute changes and the like as the job date approached! "Okay, that color we discussed... okay, I'm thinking of going with the red rather. Or maybe the... no, the red. The red's fine... I think. Do you think the red's fine? Let me ask my husband and I'll get back to you on that tomorrow. Okay, and those lights we decided on, are you sure those are the right intensity? I was thinking maybe we should..." My dad had the patience of a saint. Depending on the industry, if all of that went to the Twilio number, I'd be in the red. Thanks for your input though.
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    • Profile picture of the author Riz
      Waterprism, my post was intended to be helpful and not condescending. If it appeared that way then please accept my apologies .

      Please don't let your concerns on call lengths to the lead gen number deter you from this model. From experience I can tell you that I have never experienced this problem.

      Your scenario is rare and if it does occur you can simply educate the client as Dave suggested. Also, if it is a niche where the job value is in the thousands the lead charge should be a lot higher than $10.

      Riz

      Originally Posted by waterprism View Post

      Thanks, Dave.

      Riz, I'd hardly put questions that relate to business cost into the analysis paralysis bracket. As you can see, by asking that question I got workable information about the average call lengths Dave's been seeing and a good idea to chew on regarding educating clients about that Twilio number, something that hadn't been mentioned in this thread before. That "whopping" $1.80 could become $3.60 and then $7.20 and then $9 if the customer keeps calling up that Twilio number every time he needs to talk to the contractor. If the lead is $10, that's a cost to be aware of.

      My father was a contractor, and I can tell you, when a client is putting thousands of dollars into a job, the likelihood of such long conversations is very far from next to nothing. There were some clients who would call him every day with new questions, new worries, new ideas, last minute changes and the like as the job date approached! "Okay, that color we discussed... okay, I'm thinking of going with the red rather. Or maybe the... no, the red. The red's fine... I think. Do you think the red's fine? Let me ask my husband and I'll get back to you on that tomorrow. Okay, and those lights we decided on, are you sure those are the right intensity? I was thinking maybe we should..." My dad had the patience of a saint. Depending on the industry, if all of that went to the Twilio number, I'd be in the red. Thanks for your input though.
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  • Profile picture of the author warrenonline
    Hi, Riz. No problem! No offense taken. I gleaned a lot from your post, but wanted to add that there can be cases where calls can go long, plus that factor of clients sometimes just saving the virtual number as they think it's the contractor's number. There can also be cases where the virtual number comes up in the SERPs and other places you advertise for your client and is called not by a potential lead, but a B2B salesman trying to sell his own service or the like to the business owner and maybe holding his ear for an hour. Some of those situations coming up have been mentioned in other places in this forum.

    But yeah, definitely won't deter me. I think this is a great business model. And thank you for adding the note about your experience; that's the kind of information I was looking for. Going to work with my dad as a kid and even working with him a bit when I was older, I always remembered those long calls from clients who were getting a bit antsy about a job and would keep calling up. You always get that one, you know the type... But educating a client about the virtual number is good stuff to keep in mind.
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    • Profile picture of the author Riz
      A client saving a contractors number is something that will happen. However it will be minimized by educating the client as has been mentioned by Dave earlier.

      B2B Sales calls - leads are mainly generated from our lead gen sites ranking in the SERPS. The sites are given the illusion of real businesses and this as you mentioned will result in other service providers calling that number. This can be overcome in 2 ways:

      (i) by utilizing a call whisper service. When your client receives the call, the call whisper will inform them that it is a call generated by you. Within the first 30 seconds your client will be able to establish that it is not a real lead and keep the conversation short as he does not want to be charged for that lead.

      (ii) make calls over a certain time frame a billable lead. If it is 1 minute your client will know not to stay on the phone to a sales rep for more than 1 minute.

      Riz
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  • Profile picture of the author warrenonline
    Thanks, Riz. Good stuff.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikec513
    If you are doing this, and you do use an optin form (I agree with the guy who said not to and focus on getting their phone ringing), be sure to put on the optin form: please do not contact us about marketing, SEO, or any other form of advertising. I can't stand when internet marketing people use client contact forms to solicit them.
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    • Profile picture of the author Shuffle
      So if you have your fake website called 'Brothers Plumbing' and your sending the phone leads to 'Frank the Plumber', when Frank hears the whisper function is he answering as Franks or brothers? I'm sure there would be some customers that might say oh I thought I called brothers plumbing not franks.

      Thoughts?
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      • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
        Originally Posted by Shuffle View Post

        So if you have your fake website called 'Brothers Plumbing' and your sending the phone leads to 'Frank the Plumber', when Frank hears the whisper function is he answering as Franks or brothers? I'm sure there would be some customers that might say oh I thought I called brothers plumbing not franks.

        Thoughts?
        I have never had a client that come with that problem to me, i use general domain names and when i have a client, i put their name and logo on the site, if they are high end i even adjust the site to the company colors.

        Nobody types a domain name anyway, 99% of your traffic comes true a link, rather it be a search engine or a directory or link from an associated website.
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      • Profile picture of the author bawls
        Originally Posted by Shuffle View Post

        So if you have your fake website called 'Brothers Plumbing' and your sending the phone leads to 'Frank the Plumber', when Frank hears the whisper function is he answering as Franks or brothers? I'm sure there would be some customers that might say oh I thought I called brothers plumbing not franks.

        Thoughts?
        nobody really pays attention to whom they are calling but you can switch to clients brand after you get one.
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        • Profile picture of the author Shuffle
          So, does switching the brand name on the page and changing from a temporary logo to the company's real logo, affect the way the site ranks?
          I'm ready to jump in here and have just bought a couple of domains from around my area.
          My plan is to follow through with what has been posted as well PPC and potentially trying to finagle the local listings dilemma.
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  • Profile picture of the author wlasikiewicz
    This sounds like a really good idea, im going to give this a shot.
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  • Profile picture of the author CurtisSWN
    It seems to me that this model of lead generation is sort of the "low hanging fruit" that the big corporations and firms won't bother with, but they try, e.g. HomeAdvisor.
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  • Profile picture of the author jspmedia
    it is not low hanging fruit.. ReachLocal.com - huge - mostly PPC lead Gen, ServiceMagic, HomeAdvisor, etc..who knows Groupon might selling leads
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  • Profile picture of the author echelon
    The site looks professional and engaging. I have never tried to sell leads but I can imagine why it would be more attractive to businesses compared to a service that delivers a benefit that is not as direct (example: ranking for a keyword, fan page design).

    Thank you very much for sharing all of those details.
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  • bawls,

    Your comments go directly to the point. Why bother setting up websites or other "to be managed services" when generating actual leads and selling them directly to the user is the answer. How can they say no to an offer of paying clients for paying you. Such a deal!

    Clear thinking coming from having done it successfully yourself.
    Very good post. Thank you,

    LLS
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  • Profile picture of the author hobgoblin
    You mentioned backpage on your second post in this thread. You are actually getting leads from there?
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  • Profile picture of the author richie311
    Do you guys know for a fact if you can record the calls with Twilio? I emailed their support and they told me I couldn't record calls or maybe they just misunderstood me?
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  • Profile picture of the author Soulstreak
    This thread is just awesome!

    I had a few questions to ask:

    How would you go about handling billing?

    Do you have them sign a contract?

    Would using other forms for getting traffic such as craigslist work?

    Remind me again are we paying per call or every time a sale is made?

    Thanks in advance!
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    • Profile picture of the author J R Salem
      Originally Posted by Soulstreak View Post

      This thread is just awesome!

      I had a few questions to ask:

      How would you go about handling billing?

      Do you have them sign a contract?

      Would using other forms for getting traffic such as craigslist work?

      Remind me again are we paying per call or every time a sale is made?

      Thanks in advance!
      While my business is traditional in the sense that we consult with businesses on their needs and then implement internet marketing services, I can give you some feedback on my experience with selling leads:

      Billing needs to be automated, whether an invoice is sent once a week or once a month. There are call tracking systems that automate the billing as well, and can even bill based on the length of calls.

      I like to get contracts for traditional monthly services, but for selling leads you just need a simple agreement. The client will continue paying you without a contract if you are sending quality leads.

      Craigslist works as discussed, but truthfully using paid methods of lead generation will really scale your efforts - Facebook ads, banner ads, pay-per-click, etc.

      You definitely want to get paid per call NOT when a sale is made. You cannot control how well the business owner sells in his marketplace or his pricing. So your job is to bring in quality leads and get paid for it. If your business is based on his sales, then that creates another issue, which is tracking sales.

      Hope this helped - this is a good thread and while the pay per lead method is not ideal for my business, I see many people have success with it.
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      • Profile picture of the author Shuffle
        I just picked a random city and niche and searched google. Boulder, CO Plumber. I even changed my location setting to that city. (I live in MD)
        I get yelp as #1, then a local company, then the 7 box, then the next 4 of 5 after are directories. Can I realistically out rank any of these sites to put my page on page 1 serp? I am by no means an SEO king and I am kind of nervous about it. While I do plan on using some PPC methods, I don't want to rely on them. Anyone have some solid advice about how to rank my new site to get good amount of leads calling in?
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        • Profile picture of the author Soulstreak
          Originally Posted by Shuffle View Post

          I just picked a random city and niche and searched google. Boulder, CO Plumber. I even changed my location setting to that city. (I live in MD)
          I get yelp as #1, then a local company, then the 7 box, then the next 4 of 5 after are directories. Can I realistically out rank any of these sites to put my page on page 1 serp? I am by no means an SEO king and I am kind of nervous about it. While I do plan on using some PPC methods, I don't want to rely on them. Anyone have some solid advice about how to rank my new site to get good amount of leads calling in?
          I was wondering the same thing. I was checking out some cities and the competition seems to be pretty high. I saw many people doing this and a lot of big lead gen places already taking advantage of most cities.
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        • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
          Keywords like Plumber + city are often highly competitive, that is why you have to drill it down, first you take all the suburbs and/or village in the neighborhood of that city. cus those will be easier to rank and people will use their suburb in the query if the city is big enough (+1 million citizens) ...

          Now then you target keywords that have the services of in this case the plumber, like sewage inspaction + city/suburb/village in the neighborhood

          Next you can select keywords with problems that a plumbers solves, like leaking faucet + city/suburb/village in the neighborhood

          You see how easy that is? Sure it will not give you thousands of visitors, but a view hundred is all you need to make the phone ring.

          Dave







          Originally Posted by Shuffle View Post

          I just picked a random city and niche and searched google. Boulder, CO Plumber. I even changed my location setting to that city. (I live in MD)
          I get yelp as #1, then a local company, then the 7 box, then the next 4 of 5 after are directories. Can I realistically out rank any of these sites to put my page on page 1 serp? I am by no means an SEO king and I am kind of nervous about it. While I do plan on using some PPC methods, I don't want to rely on them. Anyone have some solid advice about how to rank my new site to get good amount of leads calling in?
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          • Profile picture of the author Shuffle
            Ok. That makes sense. I think someone already said this but ranking for 20 longtail keywords will provide an easier time for me and produce results than trying to rank for plumber + city. Because its not about traffic its about calls coming in. I got caught up in ranking #1 mindset.
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        • Profile picture of the author mrmatt
          Originally Posted by Shuffle View Post

          I just picked a random city and niche and searched google. Boulder, CO Plumber. I even changed my location setting to that city. (I live in MD)
          I get yelp as #1, then a local company, then the 7 box, then the next 4 of 5 after are directories. Can I realistically out rank any of these sites to put my page on page 1 serp? I am by no means an SEO king and I am kind of nervous about it. While I do plan on using some PPC methods, I don't want to rely on them. Anyone have some solid advice about how to rank my new site to get good amount of leads calling in?
          Sounds like easy pickings to me! I love it when page 1 is full of directories.
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          • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
            Originally Posted by mrmatt View Post

            Sounds like easy pickings to me! I love it when page 1 is full of directories.

            I rather have local businesses cus they are easier to outrank, directories like angielist and yelp are getting special treatment from Google, cus if Google was really serious about user experience, those sites would be on page 4...

            But in every local SERP they pop up at the top, Google gives them first page rankings to force the real local businesses to their overpaid PPC program.... Like i always say Google and user experience have nothing in common
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          • Profile picture of the author Adwizard
            Originally Posted by mrmatt View Post

            Sounds like easy pickings to me! I love it when page 1 is full of directories.
            Matt... question for you... why do you say you like it when directories are listed on page one and go so far as to say "easy pickins". How do you overcome this? I have found it nearly impossible to outrank sites like directories, ebay, amazon, etsy, and of course the other big directories already mentioned.

            I am by no means an SEO expert and hopefully there is something simple you do to outrank these giants that you could share with us. I have asked this question before but got no response to it so hopefully you can help by explaining what you mean and your methods for overcoming it.

            Thanks in Advance,
            Ed
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            • Profile picture of the author Cashstacking
              This thread is incredible. I was interested in doing this a while back(probably when this thread went live) and just couldn't figure out how to do the tracking. I have a site ranking high for concrete and I am just letting a buddy of mine reap the rewards of it as he is a concrete contractor.

              I should put a phone number to track/record the calls so I can tell if I am sending him business. I am not trying to get cash from him, I just can't believe what I hear from him that there no calls coming to him because of the site.

              Without tracking who knows, I don't, he doesn't and no one else can know either.

              I am just blown away with you guys and all the info put out on this thread. I used to SEO sites to the top of google all the time and kind of moved away from it because I didn't know how to monetize it.

              I have a several weeks of unwelcome down time and was beating myself up about not getting busy doing something to make money online. Now, I am not stressing over my indecisiveness as it led to me reading this thread and reading this thread led to me being inspired to get to it.

              Thanks for the motivation guys!
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  • Profile picture of the author mariocimmino
    If you type in "water heater repair" without the town local listings will still appear because of personalized search. How can we rank in those searches? The 7 Pack searches?
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  • Profile picture of the author gtownfunk
    I've been selling lead generation also, just small niches in my suburbs and getting in front of the small service companies that don't know how to fanagle the internet. They're happy to have someone giving them business, more than happy really. There are a few niches I haven't gone after that I want to, high dollar things like general contractors for home remodeling. Each job might average 50k w/ a 10% referral fee.
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    • Profile picture of the author willysig
      Find companies in industries where they already buy leads. You don't have to spend much time explaining the concept. If you do pay-per-call, then they only pay for exclusive leads and it's pay for performance. They like that.

      Home services and contractors are really familiar with buying leads. As mentioned already, they are great to target.

      Not all contractors buy leads, but they know what they are. They won't hang up on you. One objection is that they are already too busy. That's rare.

      Some just say "We don't buy leads." Translation: they can't convert the leads into a job. It's best to avoid these anyway. They won't stay with you, and will complain about bad lead quality.

      Build a prospect list and fake call them as a customer just to see how they handle the call. You would be surprised how bad some of these companies are on the phone. Only deal with companies that know how to work incoming phone calls.

      Companies that are already doing PPC often understand the value of a call, and have set up systems and sales people to convert callers into customers.
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  • Profile picture of the author FitMarketer
    Nice thanks for sharing.

    I am finding now that mobile marketing is easier than ever but I am based in Europe so that may be why.

    I am still getting great responses from my clients and I think a lot of it comes down to having a personal approach and referrals
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBlack10
    Awesome post.

    Thanks especially to bawls and YellowGreenMedia for your insights.

    I got into AdWords about 5 years ago helping my brother-in-law get more leads (he's an electrician).

    One thing led to another and I'm now a freelance AdWords dude, specialising in helping local businesses.

    I hadn't really realised how I could scale this up, and how simple it actually is!
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  • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
    I'm somewhat familiar with the site rental model, which is a spin off on this. I was renting a few sites out for a fixed monthly to local dentists. I was seeing around 25% conversion rate (visitor to caller ratio) from organic traffic.

    For some dentists I was generating 10-15 calls and one of them I was up around 40. In hindsight, I charged way too low.

    Now I am comfortable with cold calling and I think selling leads would be super easy. The hard part would be getting the leads in. Anyway, I am considering trying to make it profitable through PPC alone (supplement with SEO but rely on PPC).

    I have a question, and I always had this question - even from before when I was doing this.

    What if the client doesn't answer the phone?

    With the plumbers I've been calling last week, it seems a lot of them don't answer their phone. Some do call back fairly quickly, but some don't. If I spend money on PPC and a lead calls but there is no answer - does a system like Twilio still register that a call was made?

    I'd be billing them even if they don't answer the phone. Because it costs money to drive that lead and if they can't answer the phone then in my opinion that falls on them, not me, to bear the cost (as I would have done my part of the job).

    Thoughts?
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  • Do you want more money? NOOO! Lead gen services are the best way to get your foot in the door and then have plenty of opportunity to upsell them as well. For the simple fact... You are going to be getting them more money to spend on your services! Funny how that works, huh?
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  • Profile picture of the author NolaManBlog
    Hello bawls, I like your posts a lot. I had a few questions about lead gen: would it be best to make one website per client or do you engage multiple clients per one website? I know you said your phone would be forwarded to the client's with a whisper as well. Also, how do you handle billing, paypal? Thanks, bawls.
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