Lead Generation Questions: Who Gets the Leads?

[tom_rob]

Hello everyone, I am incredibly green to the fastlane and am trying to educate myself and change my logic!
I am reading MJ's book a second time and I am trying to get a handle on the lead generation business. Take Limos.com for discussion; let’s put it in Atlanta... So Limos.com goes to limo companies and says, "I'll provide you with leads for x.xx/lead." Let’s say that limos.com finds 20 limo companies in ATL that want to receive leads. How does limos.com decide who to send each lead to (assuming each company provides the service requested), do they send it to three companies or do they send it to all 20 of them and get the x.xx from each limo company? For Limo's I can see how it would be easy to email an individual 20 quotes, but if it was a more intensive job which actually required feet on the ground quotes, it might be a bit more cumbersome for the requestor to have 20 visitors.

Thanks for the help!

Tom

 

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[458]

Its automated bookings for stuff like that now. Leads are more for other business models these days. Look into PHP for way to setup a lead system, it really is not hard. The hard part is filling your database with clients that you can sell leads to.

 

[tom_rob]

Thanks 458. I understand that might work for more automated business's, but how about for those that don't necessarily have a net presence, or are tech savvy. It seems to me, just a cursory look, there are many trades that are one man shops. Say you have 20 painters in a city who wanted your leads. Would you just send it out to all 20 painters and they would pay each time? I also read where the lead generator keeps a database and it can be accessed by those wanting the leads...
I realize these are incredibly simple questions... thanks for humoring me.

 

[kwerner]

Thanks 458. I understand that might work for more automated business's, but how about for those that don't necessarily have a net presence, or are tech savvy. It seems to me, just a cursory look, there are many trades that are one man shops. Say you have 20 painters in a city who wanted your leads. Would you just send it out to all 20 painters and they would pay each time? I also read where the lead generator keeps a database and it can be accessed by those wanting the leads...
I realize these are incredibly simple questions... thanks for humoring me.

They don't need a net presence or need to be tech savvy, just need an email account. Sounds like you're thinking about doing home remodeling / construction leads, check out servicemagic's website for clues on how they do what they do, but do it better (especially the customer service part).

 

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[Clenjamin]

Would be pretty hard to compete with a website that gets 4 million hits. servicemagic.com 3,952,336 UVs for October 2011 | Compete

But i wish you luck in it if you do chose so.

 

[tom_rob]

Thanks for the responses... Well, not sure if it's something I want to get into, but I'm trying to look at needs that require filling, change my mindset ( No action yet... I'm new to this ). My brother is a painter (interior, exterior, commercial) and he hasn't worked in 5 weeks because times are slow and he doesn't have work. Now to be fair, he's also not a highly motivated individual. I'm trying to brainstorm: get painters on board (advertising, talk to paint shops (ex. Sherwin Williams, etc...) and leave business cards, word of mouth from painters getting business), start a website (local at first) to gain leads, and then sell those leads to local painters to go give an estimate and hopefully get work.
I realize that is a very rough outline, just trying to put together ideas and fill a need where I've witnessed problems. It seems I would have to split the work between guys, or possibly maintain a database where painters could login and pick jobs based on the work (maybe view how many other painters have purchased the lead to determine if they want to bid against that many, which also might backfire and limit the potential leads sold).
Pretty interesting stuff...
Thanks again for the responses,

Tom

 

[kwerner]

Thanks for the responses... Well, not sure if it's something I want to get into, but I'm trying to look at needs that require filling, change my mindset ( No action yet... I'm new to this ). My brother is a painter (interior, exterior, commercial) and he hasn't worked in 5 weeks because times are slow and he doesn't have work. Now to be fair, he's also not a highly motivated individual. I'm trying to brainstorm: get painters on board (advertising, talk to paint shops (ex. Sherwin Williams, etc...) and leave business cards, word of mouth from painters getting business), start a website (local at first) to gain leads, and then sell those leads to local painters to go give an estimate and hopefully get work.
I realize that is a very rough outline, just trying to put together ideas and fill a need where I've witnessed problems. It seems I would have to split the work between guys, or possibly maintain a database where painters could login and pick jobs based on the work (maybe view how many other painters have purchased the lead to determine if they want to bid against that many, which also might backfire and limit the potential leads sold).
Pretty interesting stuff...
Thanks again for the responses,

Tom

It seems to be a pretty saturated field from my perspective, but that doesn't mean you can't make money with it though, especially if you focus on niching it down to exterior / interior painting or foundation repair or something like that.

Instead of having the contractors login to their account to view the jobs available, it would seem easier for both them and yourself to email them the lead, don't you think? Then you can bill them a fair price for the leads that were sent to them, whether they took the job or not.

A tip before you get started in all this - Make sure you do your keyword research *first* and be sure there is enough *exact match* traffic searches per month for your keywords to justify making this type of site before spending any $$ on it.

 

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[tom_rob]

I was checking out servicemagic.com ('s) website and they definitely have a corner on the market. Not to say it can't be done better. I found this post Review ServiceMagic which gives a pretty decent review about the pro's and con's; something I would be paying incredibly close attention to if I were them.
I'm not sure it's something I want to get into... but I need to take some action with something.... but not for actions sake, I want it to be something I really want to jump into (not saying I have to love it).
I'm a bit embarrassed to say this, but I haven't worked in a week (well, I've worked but I'm on call and they haven't called) and I've spend the last two days finishing two books and reading post after post about this stuff... time to be the driver if you know what I am sayin'....
Tom