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Question: pre-launch customer acquisition on a business model such as limos.com

D

Deleted49964

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Hello everyone, I'd like to post a question to experienced fastlaners. Don't want to take too much of your time but If you can answer it I'd be very glad.

Let's say we're talking about @MJ DeMarco 's former business: limos.com.
The company brings together customers and businesses of the limo industry, taking commision per successful lead.

In a business model such as this, assuming a company is in its early days of development, how would that company gather early business sign ups? In other words, how would a company like "limos.com" ensure having limo business clients by the time the website goes online?

Would a standard landing page, stating benefits for an early entrance, be the right course of action? Businesses would be able to sign up and use a portion of the final website, allowing them to set up their information/etc. When the website goes live, those companies would be the first to receive leads and generate revenue (along with other benefits).

Also, by this method, are there any legal formalities needed? Do you think there is a better method?

Thank you very much for helping :)

André
 
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sparechange

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lol just ask mj yourself im sure he'd answer
 

Azure

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Get the leads first before you worry about selling them. You have not generated any leads yet, right? The customer aquisition is easy, once you can generate leads at an efficient enough rate. How can you sell something that you do not have, or even know if you can get it?

If these leads were a product, you would physically need to see them before you sent it off to Amazon FBA. Get the product in your hands.

Can you generate profitable leads in your niche right now?
 
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inputchip

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How can you sell something that you do not have, or even know if you can get it?
When MJ was running limos.com, he would only get paid if he got the limo service companies more leads. More leads = More revenue. No leads = No revenue. The beauty of the model is that the limo companies have no risk. They would not have to pay MJ unless MJ sent them leads.

I would go directly to whoever you are wanting to generate leads for and do the same strategy. They don't pay you unless you give them leads. Once you have companies lined up ready to service your leads, then you can generate leads and actually fulfill the leads.
 

sparechange

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D

Deleted49964

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Get the leads first before you worry about selling them. You have not generated any leads yet, right? The customer aquisition is easy, once you can generate leads at an efficient enough rate. How can you sell something that you do not have, or even know if you can get it?

If these leads were a product, you would physically need to see them before you sent it off to Amazon FBA. Get the product in your hands.

Can you generate profitable leads in your niche right now?
By my example, the leads are generated to limo businesses and, for our website to work, we need both customers and businesses working together. Wouldn't we need the businesses in our site first? My question was on how to achieve that.

Let's assume the website is complete but we have 0 user base (both customer and business users). We have the product.

Are you suggesting that, by this business model, we should display limo companies in our site before they actually sign in, without their previous knowledge or permission? And then request them to pay for more benefits, once they get to know us? Are there legal issues here? How would we even achieve that? We would need their information on pricing, territorial range, etc... correct?

Thanks for the answer!
 
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D

Deleted49964

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When MJ was running limos.com, he would only get paid if he got the limo service companies more leads. More leads = More revenue. No leads = No revenue. The beauty of the model is that the limo companies have no risk. They would not have to pay MJ unless MJ sent them leads.

I would go directly to whoever you are wanting to generate leads for and do the same strategy. They don't pay you unless you give them leads. Once you have companies lined up ready to service your leads, then you can generate leads and actually fulfill the leads.
Yes, that was my first thought, along with the pre-launch landing page.

Both strategies would be executed before website launch, because the site wouldn't function without business sign ups. Or is that not necessarily so?
 
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johnp

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I can't comment on limos.com. I think that things have changed a bit with that site over the years and even in how leads are generated online. But I have done this a number of times and I have seen how one successfully company approaches it.

In the early days you just need a way to collect the lead with one landing page, a phone number, and an email.

From there you generate the lead in one local area, pick up the phone and start calling potential buyers with a good pitch.

It shouldn't take more than a few days to do all of this.

Generating the lead is pretty easy depending on your niche, your budget, and whether you're willing to use paid traffic. I actually found it hard to sell the lead. You'd be surprised, just because you have some leads not everyone will want them. Especially if you're generating leads for a service industry where they are betting bombarded with marketing services and leads from other sources daily which is the exact problem that I ran into. I don't know how many people told me that they already had lead providers and were tired of being pitched lead gen services. One thing that you can try is giving away a few for free as a trial.

Then as you get more built up, you can start doing a lot more with rebills, CRMS, and backend funnels. But for now, keep it simple. One landing page, a phone, and an email account. Having done this, I think all of this is a lot harder than it seems.

--- update ---

Oh and I forgot to say, don't worry about getting people to "sign up" to a site. You don't need such a sophisticated platform and you'll end focusing too much on the buyer side. Getting people to sign up to something on a promise of future leads is really hard... been there, done that. Just focus on generating the lead.

Get leads to submit info into your landing page. Use Unbounce.com. I run thoughts of page views per month through Unbounce. They are great. They will send the lead to your email and you can export them as a CSV. Validate that you can even generate a lead.
 
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