Email box full of leads, can't convert them

[Drew]

I can't remember where I heard or read MJ say that when he first started limos.com, he had tons of emails coming in when a friend told him he needed to convert them into cash prior to coming up with the lead gen model.

This week I had family I hadn't seen for a while come in from out of town and my uncle showed me some websites he's created (by outsourcing everything as he is not a programmer) and the sites are based on lead gen forms, one of which is for engines.

In the two days he was in town staying with me he received over 300 emails! (this is where the deja vu after hearing the mj story in saying "holy sh*t, you need to convert those! comes in) Problem is, he couldn't really convert any of them in the time he was here because he is still in the process of searching out the engines manually. I don't have much knowledge of the site other than what I've already explained and he doesn't know I'm searching for a solution for him.

So, with the information I've provided, I'm wondering if anyone can think of either a better business model than what he has created? Or either examples or solutions to the problem of needing to create some kind of code or algorithm to extract the prices of these engines from the auction sites. For example, are there any sites out there that quote auction prices from ebay or something like that?

I've tried searching the web on programming sites to see if people have successfully done this with php but no luck, what I did find was completely over my head. I also know that he is working with one main auction site (i can't remember which one) and thought that he might want to propose to them a contract for him to be an affiliate for them. That way when someone submits him a form, he can forward some info to the engine site where they would quote it based on it's current bid then give the price back to the lead.

Thanks for reading. I think his site has major potential if it can run passively.

 

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[Drew]

I'm giving this a bump for help.

 

[LightHouse]

FYI you aren't getting many responses because you are asking people to solve a problem for you, without first showing the effort you made to solve it. You may want to start with what you have tried, and any plans you devised to solve the issue, and use the collective experience on this board to walk you through solving that issue. If you take time to work through it and show that, i can garuntee you will get some heavy hitter responses and some incredible advice.

 

[Drew]

Thanks for the response, I revised my first post to show what some of my ideas have been but as you know I have limited info on this for the time being as it is not my site.

 

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[rocksolid]

Why don't you find better sources for engines and then work with him 50/50 on this?

 

[Drew]

Why don't you find better sources for engines and then work with him 50/50 on this?

Good idea, I hadn't considered changing his engine source. If I could find one with fixed prices it would definitely help because then we could make a database of them even though we'd have update it when their sold. Or, hell, just become the warehouse if he's getting a ton of traffic...first figure out which engines are most popular and then start to stock up on them...make money on top of just the finders fee... You've got me thinking.

 

[CommonCents]

Instead of looking what might be existing, the value might be to create a centralized site for engines. ie. Do the legwork to sign up various dealers, auctions, salvage yards etc... Get a critical mass going and the rest will seek you out. I'd have to think salvage yards use various databases to search other inventory. I think I've seen one online, as well as copart etc... Hundreds of car enthusiast forums have 'for sale' sections where people sell engines as well. An aggregation site focused on that could get tons of traffic in a hurry working with all those forums.

 

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[Drew]

Instead of looking what might be existing, the value might be to create a centralized site for engines. ie. Do the legwork to sign up various dealers, auctions, salvage yards etc... Get a critical mass going and the rest will seek you out. I'd have to think salvage yards use various databases to search other inventory. I think I've seen one online, as well as copart etc... Hundreds of car enthusiast forums have 'for sale' sections where people sell engines as well. An aggregation site focused on that could get tons of traffic in a hurry working with all those forums.

Thanks for your comment.

I looked up copart and I can see what you mean by being centralized, as they are sort of a summation of cars from dealers, insurance companies, salvage yards, etc. but don't actually have the cars in their possession I'm guessing (just a middle man making a killing). I had to read this a few times to try and wrap my head around it... so with the aggregation model, these affiliates (what you mean by sign up, I'm guessing) would browse the engine requests in our database (or through emails sent to them) and pick ones out that they can sell to then we get a lead/transaction fee? OR do they list their engines on the database first, with the price, then get charged when we sell the engine? Sorry, this is probably a stupid lead gen question that has been asked a million times. Not familiar with aggregation models. Thanks.

 

[Milkanic]

What you are describing above is an API. What is the eBay API?

If a site doesn't have an API, you can also do web scraping with a tool such as Scrapy | An open source web scraping framework for Python.

 

[andviv]

are there any sites out there that quote auction prices from ebay or something like that?

Yes.

I also know that he is working with one main auction site (i can't remember which one) and thought that he might want to propose to them a contract for him to be an affiliate for them.

NOOOOOOO!
Are you kidding? (sorry, is HE kidding?) He is sitting on a gold mine and he wants to get pennies out of it?

Who sells engines like this?

Get a listing of all the companies you know that sells them.

Work with them.

Charge them $100 or $50 or whatever fee everytime you send them a buyer.

This sounds like a classical Lead-Gen site to me, applies to a very specific niche.

Am I missing something?

 

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[andviv]

Do the legwork to sign up various dealers, auctions, salvage yards etc... Get a critical mass going and the rest will seek you out. I'd have to think salvage yards use various databases to search other inventory. I think I've seen one online, as well as copart etc... Hundreds of car enthusiast forums have 'for sale' sections where people sell engines as well. An aggregation site focused on that could get tons of traffic in a hurry working with all those forums.

I concur.

 

[Drew]

What you are describing above is an API. What is the eBay API?

If a site doesn't have an API, you can also do web scraping with a tool such as Scrapy | An open source web scraping framework for Python.

This is exactly what I was looking for initially! Thank you! BUT andviv and commoncents are making some great points here that I thinkg does away with the quoting altogether lol

 

[Drew]

Yes.


NOOOOOOO!
Are you kidding? (sorry, is HE kidding?) He is sitting on a gold mine and he wants to get pennies out of it?

Who sells engines like this?

Get a listing of all the companies you know that sells them.

Work with them.

Charge them $100 or $50 or whatever fee everytime you send them a buyer.

This sounds like a classical Lead-Gen site to me, applies to a very specific niche.

Am I missing something?

Your not missing anything, maybe just a high five coming your way lol great points. I'm already emailing him about your comments as well as the one from commoncents.

 

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[LightHouse]

Some guy, i swear it was on this forum, was making a killing doing the same with used... i want to say forklifts....? Someone else may remember and can follow up.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Charge them $100 or $50 or whatever fee everytime you send them a buyer.

When I got my start, I use to send leads to prospective companies for FREE. For example, if I had a lead for service in Toledo OH, I'd seek out a Toledo company and send them the lead, complimentary...

I'd start by saying, "Can you help this guy out? This sounds like a big job!"
(I'd stress that the lead was a legit lead and the person would love a response.)

Then at the bottom, I'd make a quick one-liner about how to join our service, and how it would benefit them to join.

This was hard work, but provided me the opportunity to show potential companies the value of my service.

 

[LightHouse]

When I got my start, I use to send leads to prospective companies for FREE. For example, if I had a lead for service in Toledo OH, I'd seek out a Toledo company and send them the lead, complimentary...

I'd start by saying, "Can you help this guy out? This sounds like a big job!"
(I'd stress that the lead was a legit lead and the person would love a response.)

Then at the bottom, I'd make a quick one-liner about how to join our service, and how it would benefit them to join.

This was hard work, but provided me the opportunity to show potential companies the value of my service.

It's funny too because this same thing traverses all aspects of business and life. Don't expect something for nothing. You have to show value before earning it, ya know. A few buddies of mine created a stunt team and get paid to do shows. When they were starting i stressed that they need to do some shows, preferably bigger, for cheap or maybe even free if it will work. You establish credibility, a trustbase, and contacts for your business that way. It accelerated them into a list of other shows so far.

Hopefully they can fully leverage it out to the big time, not to make a career out of it, but just for the accomplishment and notoriety.

Also another similar story. When i dealt with relocation management in DC, i remember the library of congress wanting to move their books for some reason. I remember hearing that everyone was bidding $1 etc. Every company was smart enough to not think of profits or loss, rather than the credibility that you establish from doing such a large tedious job. Anyone that put in a real bid, focusing only on the money... will get lost in the greed and big picture of long term success.

So really, you have a really important piece of advice there.

 

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