Becoming the Middle Man, $5-6000k a month concept

I think the biggest issue would be most tradesmen actually go in and run a quick estimate, if approved by the client, begins work on the spot. I think it'd be hard to structure the business model (other than pay per lead) to have the service provider not get the money immediately after it's done.

I'd imagine your first step is to really lock down the contracts and the legalities involved, just to ensure you're getting paid. Essentially, you'd want your service provider to run the estimate, get that okay, add your fee, then get the paperwork signed, so you can charge the client and then send payment to the service provider.

I think pay per lead was born because that model doesn't make sense. Did I miss anything?


Also, for the pay per lead model, you have to figure out the client's conversion rates to actually get the correct amount of rates. If a plumber's average profit is $100/gig, and the leads you are providing him close at 60%, that means out of every 10 leads, he's making $600, and you should be around that $200 mark max. So, $20/lead or $35/sale.

It honestly depends on your client's profit margins.

You're jumping around quite a bit, going from $50 per week to $50 million dollar deals.

May want to take the excitement down a notch and just see if you can increase the $50 to $100 per week. Now you have a proven model that actually works.

Can it be ramped up? Maybe. Instead of reporting back here, use your time to promote the idea. Be a small talker but a big doer. You'll get further ahead, I promise.

Ron

This is actually a big goal of mine once I've generated sufficient cash flow to be able to operate a business like this.

There's a blockpaving authority site here in the UK, where the guy post free info about block paving and landscaping etc. He's number one for quite a few keywords and gets about 20-30 requests a month for driveway estimates. I reckon I could take his spot in time, as well as many other trades where there are thousands made on each job.


That's just one tiny segment of the building trade. It would be quite easy, with the right SEO tactics to build a mega site that ranks for many local building and construction keywords, and be generating consistent requests for estimates.

To make it work, you'd need to hire experienced people to go an price and win jobs, and then a network of contractors to do the work, and you make your cut after winning the contract, which is in the 000's for most jobs, before getting the work carried out by others.

I saw a one of those big lorries that transport cars the other day full of a fleet of brand new vans for one little building firm.

The money in that game in unreal, and many firms would be more than happy for you to pass work their way after taking your cut.

I already no one guy I could pass jobs onto for £500 a time for everyone he closed, and if I was the owner of that blockpaving site getting 20-30 requests for price estimates and passing them on to him, where he closes more than half on average currently, that would be a lot of commission.

I'd rather win the contracts in my own company name, by hiring pricers to get jobs, rather than have other people go and price them, because of the trust issue in a lot of cases.

The building game will always be in demand. If you use your ability to generate leads and convert them from the net and get lots of estimate requests, and have the right people to pass them onto, there is BIG time money to be made in doing it properly and professionally.

Much more than trying to do online marketing for lots of separate different companies.

Good thread.

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Remember the OP...

Here we are ladies and gentleman. Welcome to the Warrior Forum.

Depending on where you live you may want to stay away from contractors. To do this in Oregon you would need license, insurance and bond. Trying to do what you want without these things is just asking for some serious fines.

I've setup deals like this in the past with landscaping companies mostly. The biggest problem was tracking. If you really break it down, I can tell you how many phone calls or emails you got from my efforts, after that you are relying on the honesty of the landscaper to report back to you on what the result was.

The best way I have found that this works is that you are involved in the bid process with the customer. However, you need to be careful with this because depending on how you structure, as was mentioned above, you may need your own insurance, licenses, etc... Also, this basically turns you into a glorified sales rep for them, which eats up a lot of your time, or you have to hire people to do this for you, and we all know how that usually turns out.

Now, if you really wanted to get into the "commission" of a "Condo" sized project, you need to capitalize on a specific segment of a market that has a high dollar ($1000's) or extremely high dollar ($10,000's) contract. Design a marketing campaign around that, and find a reputable company to partner with and work off a commission from the leads you generate. A lot of these kinds of segments won't mind shelling out a 10% commission or more, especially since they aren't paying anything upfront. But you are leveraging your payout on their reputation, and ability to close a sale once you generate a lead. It can be a little bit of a roll of the dice, depends on how tested your marketing is.