How did MJ get paid?

[Chris Farrugia]

I just bought the book after hearing MJ's interview on a podcast I listen to. The part I'm dying to know though is how did he get paid on limos.com? Did the limo companies pay a membership to bid on jobs? Did they pay for each lead? That's the part I just don't understand yet.

[Bozigian]

Its from Lead Generation.

PS. It would be nice if you had an introduction

[Inphinity]

My understanding would be they paid a fee per lead. Kind of like pay-per-click marketing. Each time he provided the limo company with a specific, highly-targetted potential customer, he got $.

[Chris Farrugia]

Understood, but how? Did the limo companies pay a subscription fee to access those leads? Did they pay each time they bid on a job? Did they bid for free and pay once the job was accepted? That's the type of thing I'm most curious about.

[Chris Farrugia]

Thanks guys. I'm trying to figure out the details because I have had a few ideas for lead generation that have proven to work. I just don't know the best way to get paid on those leads. I'm afraid if I charged a membership to the companies, I wouldn't have enough companies to bid on quotes, thus making it useless for the customers. If I charge per lead, again I'm afraid companies wouldn't pay to bid thinking that they won't get the job anyway. If I charge only the company that is chosen for the job, that sounds the easiest but I don't know if that's truly the best way for me to make money.

Then of course, I hear MJ DeMarco talking about limos.com on a podcast and it sounded exactly like something I needed to learn so I bought the book. I just haven't come across the details yet in his text.

[Inphinity]

Probably he would send the leads to the company most relevant to the inquiry (based on location, vehicle type preference etc chosen by the customer) then invoice the limo company monthly for how many leads were sent.

[Chris Farrugia]

That's exactly the detail I'm interested in. Hopefully someone will know!

I really hope he wasn't invoicing after the fact. I really don't want to become a collection agency!

[Likwid24]

I use service magic for Painting leads and I pay for the lead in advance. I'll lay out a certain amount of money each month and they will send me leads until I run out. I can add money to my account at anytime and if I'm getting to many leads at once that I cant handle, I can shut the leads off until I need them again. I would highly suggest collecting lead money first or have them put it on a credit card and deduct it as leads come in.

[Chris Farrugia]

Likwid, I like where you're going with this. If you don't mind, do you compete with others? So if a lead comes to you, did it also go to someone else? My idea involves a potential customer coming to my site to get leads from lots of businesses in their area automatically. That's the sell to the customer. Free of course. Then, the businesses bid and the customer can choose whomever they want.

[Likwid24]

ServiceMagic gives the lead to 3 Contractor's in the area. The contractors then call the customer to do the estimate and the customer chooses the contractor that is best fit for the job. The contractor's pay for the lead and it is free for the customer. I'm not a big computer guy. There's many people in this forum that can help you. I suggest that you give an introduction. Tell people about yourself and what your future plans are. Once you do that, I bet there will be more people willing to help you. Good Luck!

[dnice]

You can check the archives of limos.com at the waybackmachine.org website and check out the affiliate program and advertiser sections of the old site. You can get a good idea of how he made money on these pages. The archive date of the site I was on was August 1, 2005.

[MJDeMarco]

Leads were accumulated by each company per month. Consumers where presented with a directory format and allowed to request quotes from multiple services. (So the lead went to multiple companies dependent on the client's selections.) At the beginning of the month, the prior month was billed via credit card.

I really hope he wasn't invoicing after the fact. I really don't want to become a collection agency!

Sorry, but this was part of the business. I was going to front-load the collection via deposit (just like Google does) as an upgrade in the new version but the company was sold before I was able to implement this.

I certainly hope you aren't considering doing this in the same industry -- Limos.com dominates the space and has transitioned to real-time online booking as expected. (I think lead-gen in this space is not a viable startup any longer)

[CEBenz]

Leads were accumulated by each company per month. Consumers where presented with a directory format and allowed to request quotes from multiple services. (So the lead went to multiple companies dependent on the client's selections.) At the beginning of the month, the prior month was billed via credit card.



Sorry, but this was part of the business. I was going to front-load the collection via deposit (just like Google does) as an upgrade in the new version but the company was sold before I was able to implement this.

I certainly hope you aren't considering doing this in the same industry -- Limos.com dominates the space and has transitioned to real-time online booking as expected. (I think lead-gen in this space is not a viable startup any longer)

MJ, this has me thinking of doing the same thing in an industry that I don't think has been touched yet.

Did you have any way for site users to leave feedback?

[Chris Farrugia]

Leads were accumulated by each company per month. Consumers where presented with a directory format and allowed to request quotes from multiple services. (So the lead went to multiple companies dependent on the client's selections.) At the beginning of the month, the prior month was billed via credit card.



Sorry, but this was part of the business. I was going to front-load the collection via deposit (just like Google does) as an upgrade in the new version but the company was sold before I was able to implement this.

I certainly hope you aren't considering doing this in the same industry -- Limos.com dominates the space and has transitioned to real-time online booking as expected. (I think lead-gen in this space is not a viable startup any longer)

First of all, I feel pretty honored that the author responded... and so quickly! Having the users choose the companies that their quote goes to sounds really good. It isn't the limo industry. In fact, it's very unlike the limo industry.