End of my lead gen experiment - Lessons Learned

[7.62x51]

A few months ago I built a fully automated bot which replied to car ads posted on kijiji (craigslist of Canada).

I was working at a dealership myself at the time and was able to convert leads from this system.

After leaving the dealership, I tried selling this system to other salespeople and that's when I hit a brick wall.

If you try to sell them the system as a service, they will think it's a scam and won't bother. If you try to sell it to them per lead converted, they will take it for granted (which means low conversations, poor communication, etc.)

The entire appeal of this system was that it was supposed to be hands off and fully automated but I realize now that you can't really do that once you involve other people.

People are often missing knowledge that you'd take for granted, they behave unpredictably and can randomly disappear at any time.

I realized today that there HAS TO BE a better way to make a few bucks than this. My original motivation for this project was to level up my coding skills and perhaps that was my biggest mistake. Next time, I will make sure to prioritize making money over learning something new.

 

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[ApparentHorizon]

If you try to sell them the system as a service, they will think it's a scam and won't bother. If you try to sell it to them per lead converted, they will take it for granted (which means low conversations, poor communication, etc.)

My original motivation for this project was to level up my coding skills and perhaps that was my biggest mistake. Next time, I will make sure to prioritize making money over learning something new.

How about copywriting? Maybe you're framing it in a way they don't understand?
What if you sold it directly to the dealer instead of individual salespeople? - bulk discount if the dealership buys X number of licenses.

 

[HoneyBadger]

How about copywriting? Maybe you're framing it in a way they don't understand?
What if you sold it directly to the dealer instead of individual salespeople? - bulk discount if the dealership buys X number of licenses.

Also perhaps up the perceived value by limiting it to one dealership can hold licenses per territory. It would also probably help slow the time until Craigslist cracks down on you since only one dealer per city would be spamming people.

 

[The-J]

Why not just sell it to them as a cloud software?

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My problem with your service is that it leverages Kijiji, which is both limited and free.

It also depends on how well the salesperson closes. A closer doesn't need your system, and a piker wouldn't benefit.

Figure out some way that both will benefit.

 

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[Andy Black]

I can't visualise what's going on...

Someone puts an ad to sell a car on Kijiji? Your bot replies to them - asking for more details?

You used to get the emails from these sellers?


Or were they people looking to buy a car, and only models you had on your forecourt?

 

[HoneyBadger]

My guess is the system is spamming people who are selling their car and asking if they want to trade them in with some marketing promotion at the dealership instead.

 

[The-J]

I can't visualise what's going on...

Someone puts an ad to sell a car on Kijiji? Your bot replies to them - asking for more details?

You used to get the emails from these sellers?


Or were they people looking to buy a car, and only models you had on your forecourt?

Sounds like it was sending an automatic reply with a link of some sort to the dealership.

 

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[7.62x51]

My guess is the system is spamming people who are selling their car and asking if they want to trade them in

Pretty much this.

Although I've taken a lot of pre-cautions to avoid annoying people (not replying to the same ad more than once, not replying to ads that say "no email", "no trades", etc.)

I initially only ask them if the car is available and to text me if that's the case. I give them a temporary number and when they send a text to that number they get an automated reply asking if they would be interested in a trade in.

As one might expect, this has a very low success rate. 1/100 people will be interested. However it can send out 500-1000 messages / day.

Success in car sales today has more to do with how much traffic you can bring than how good of a closer you are (although you still need to be a good closer).
--

I like the suggestion of turning this into some sort of cloud software but I'm not sure if the value proposition is worth pursing any further. It would be like a person who writes a blog with poor content, then does a ton of SEO, marketing and link building to drive traffic and then wonders why his bounce rate is so high.

If my idea was as useful to others as I thought it would be, I wouldn't have so much trouble right now getting salespeople to use it.

 

[Andy Black]

If my idea was as useful to others as I thought it would be, I wouldn't have so much trouble right now getting salespeople to use it.

Not necessarily. You'd be surprised how hard it is to give businesses new business sometimes.

Some small businesses are small for a reason.

 

[Guest3722A]

I tried selling this system to other salespeople and that's when I hit a brick wall.

What are your thoughts on just giving the system to the salespeople. Would they use it then? If so, maybe the payoff is in the exit (buyout) a few years down the line if you can get thousands of subscribers. It definitely would need to have more ways to find trade-in customers beyond kijiji. I find this interesting though because it worked for you so there is something there. I personally think you're quitting too soon.

 

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[Andy Black]

There is huge search volume on Google of people searching for make and model of car, by location...