Internet Lead Generating Company.

vinylguy

ok ultimate and cole, so they are the best out there right now! the best of what so instead of 1 lead for every 30 they give me i get 2 leads! not #s i like to or care to mess with anymore. thats just my opion and experience with them. still tire kickers or small repair jobs. i know some will say hey the repair jobs can lead into other work, but if they just had their crap windows installed last year and can't find the crap contractor that installed them anymore not the bussiness i want! (make sense?) also did you ever wonder why we still get junk leads from these guys when they say the contact the homeowner and filter them out from the tire kickers to the serious? who the heck filters them? must be on commissions. cause if i or as i do here at my office i make sure what i'm going on before i go. how stinking hard can it be? uh, are you a homeowner yes or no #2 how long you been thinking about your project#3 when would you like to have the project done by?#4 do you have cash to pay for work or are you planning on financeing? those 4 little ?s can and would help them get things right for us the contractors who pay for their service that is only done 1/2 ass! so yes maybe they are a bit better but for my $ i'm spending it on other resources. save your money guys if you hit enough homes your going to get that lead on your own anyways. then all the money goes in your pocket not the big corporations.

ultimatetouch

how about adwords any luck with that Vinyl Guy? I am already sold on flyers or hanger thats in the mix.

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Ultimatetouch
Illinois Remodeling Company, Kitchen Remodeling Chicago, Room Additions Illinois

Susan Betz

Thanks for sharing the input on the lead generators. That's something we considered but don't want to pay for if it's not generating quality leads. The fence we build starts at $45/ft and up installed, you should hear the average homeowner squeal when they hear that price.

Re: doorhangers. We go into upscale neighborhoods and drop nice brochures in transparent hanging bags, hung on mailboxes. We've generated a lot of business this way. It's simple, low-tech, and works remarkably well. On our last campaign, out of just 1000 hangers we sold three fences. It doesn't sound like a great conversion rate, but between making up the brochure (we have a color laser printer, that helps with cost) and distributing (paid my 13 yr old twins to walk the neighborhood while I drove), I don't think I spent 10 hours or more than $50 on the ad. And we were able to target the advertising like you can't do on a direct mail campaign - if the house already had a fence, they didn't get a brochure.

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Fences of Distinction, Ocala, FL
http://www.fencesofdistinction.com

vinylguy

susan, congrat's, thats great to hear. i will tell you thou that we knock on everydoor why not maybe they want a fence extension a repair done to that existing fence or another gate installed or maybe they have wood and just are tired of it and want a new vinyl fence. i guess what i'm trying to say is that your already in the neighborhood youv'e already printed flyers your going to be working in that hood for a whlie and you just gotten brand awareness now these people are familer with you and so when there at work or a family function in there back yard and there family member says to them wow i just bought a dog and need a fence around my yard they say " hey io just got a flyer here from this company whoes actually working up the street here at the jones home " they hand off the flyer the relitive drives by the joneses on thier way home and see your beautiful work your doing and how clean the job site is they get so excited they stop mr jones comes out to see whos in his yard and they start talking he tells them what a great company you are what great work you do heck he just practically sold the job for you! you go in and sell the value not the price thier happy yoour happy mr. jones gets a $50.00 gas card for the nice things he's said about you so he's happier and gets to thinking hey if i refer them again and they sell the job i can go the rest of my life without buying gas! ok! ok! i got a little carried away i'm sure you get my drift. but if your there already why leave a stone unturned. and one more thing i here alot of people say what areas did you hit so i don't hit that area agian why not ? hit it a hundred times the more the marrier the people get used to you and you become like a nieghbor to them hey here comes joe again. lets tell him about charlie and sue who we talked to last night and wants to get a fence maybe we can get one of those gas cards!

Susan Betz

vinylguy,

I like the $50 gas card idea. You're sure right about getting neighbor referrals - we've had several calls from people who see their neighbor's fence and then get a brochure (we do repeat campaigns).

What surprises me is the number of people that keep the brochures. I found out through a mutual friend that we dropped off a brochure at at one woman's mother's house, and the daughter found it and kept it, and still has it.

So you're right about the networking. It works, for sure.

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Fences of Distinction, Ocala, FL
http://www.fencesofdistinction.com

marc

I love the canvassing idea but I do have 1 question.

Where do you find the people that can knock on 100 doors per hour?

Also, where do you find people that are willing to do that for $7.00 per hour.

We pay $8.00 per hour plus $25.00 for a set appointment plus $50.00 if it sells. On average they will bring back 1 set appointment for every 4 hour shift they work.

On average they make $14.25 per hour to $26.75 per hour depending how good they are. We also pay an extra $2.00 per hour if they use their car to get to the neiborhoods.

Grumpy

I use contractors4u. I have been with Jeff since the beginning before he changed his name and re-did his website. I wish jeff got me MORE leads!

Grumpy

I ditched them about two months ago and had been with them for about 4 years.

Grumpy

I just got back from a quality smith appointment. I will run those all day, infact I have made several attempts to work out a deal with them to dedicate the bulk of my marketing budget. Is it just that they are not getting you the volume of appointments you were hoping? I don't have the problems you described regarding small jobs, and I acknowledge that there will be tire kickers no matter what you are doing to generate leads.

The best part of QS is that they a sell me appointments, which saves me a step of buying leads and then trying to set appointments, like with SM or RenEx leads. Once I get in the door my closing percentage with QS leads is about the same as I can expect with any other advertising source.

Cole

Good, I am glad to know your opinion on them.

I know you have used them in the past.

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Tulsa's Leader in Outdoor Living Construction | Facebook | Tulsa Pergola Builder | Tulsa Outdoor Kitchens

C4U

I don't usually post to message boards but since my company, Contractors4u.com is the one mentioned here I thought I should speak up.

There are a few details that Ultimatetouch left out of his post when he said "everything that has been sent to us through this company has been crap." He left out the fact that during the period of time he was with us he received 19 leads valued at $512. The reason he only paid around $300 for those leads was that our policy is we will not charge contractors for any lead they feel did not represent a quality opportunity. Ultimatetouch returned many of the leads he received and consequently was only charged for the ones he determined were quality leads.

Not all contractors do well with leads from online referral services. I have been doing this for almost 6 years now and I can tell you I have contractors that close business on leads that other contractors return to me for credit saying they were no good.

The contractors that do best in my network are the ones that contact the customer right away and who present themselves as knowledgable, friendly and professional on the phone. The best technician is not the one that will necessarily get the job. The customer doesn't know who will do the best work of the 2-3 contractors they are referred to. They can only go by the perception they get from you on the first call and go from there.

By the way, someone in this thread mentioned the book called The E-Myth Contractor by Michael Gerber. It should be required reading for anyone who owns a small contracting company.

ultimatetouch

Doug Im sure you have more experiance with buying leads. But why would it bring poor results to get back to them the next day if you already brought the lead.

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Ultimatetouch
Illinois Remodeling Company, Kitchen Remodeling Chicago, Room Additions Illinois

ultimatetouch

Jeff I also stated that you were a fair guy and that you return leads and that was why I was still there. I also stated that it could be the time of year. I am open minded and I like you Jeff but I am simply stating my experiance this far. It could just be the time of the year, these fellas have more experiance with leads then myself. But the ones that I did recieve I got no return call and no answer. I called those people with in minutes.

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Ultimatetouch
Illinois Remodeling Company, Kitchen Remodeling Chicago, Room Additions Illinois

dougchips

If you take your next 100 internet leads and call them within a minute of receiving them you will contact a large % of them. Take another batch of 100 and wait 3 hours or 1 day and you will be lucky to contact 20% of them. If the lead service offers real time leads you should be able to contact most of them right away and they will answer.

If you wanted to Google something and Google's site said it was busy, you might check Yahoo, and more search engines until you got results. If Google sent you an email the next day saying that it was interested in completing your search would you respond to them? This is the same reason leads do not call back they have results for their search. In 5 minutes you can locate 15 lead generating companies that will have 3-4 contractors calling you, how many need to call you until you stop answering the phone?

If you plan on using internet leads, get a cell phone that will handle e-mail, set an alert when you receive an e-mail and call them the minute you get the lead. Outsource this task if you can't handle it, the results will pay for the expense.

dougchips

Jeff, are you selling real time leads? If not do you publish the times that you batch out the leads?

vinylguy

just canceled serv maj on friday. just got new lead today! don't figure! anyways its there on my text so i know i will get charged so i call within seconds the guy answers after talking to him he says im just seeing how much it will cost we just boght our house and have no money right now so we just wanted to know so we had an idea in a year or so agian did this company really filter these people or did they just have to keep up the lead volume?

Grumpy

My experience with C4U is that as the customer types in what they want done and the area etc... they are immediately given a list of available contractors, and at which time the contractors are immediately emailed the lead's information. They even come to your cell phone if you choose.

dougchips

Safe to assume that you can contact a high percentage of them. Also safe to assume that you can close a fair percentage of them providing the web-site does not promote "cheap contractors".

Grumpy

I've been up agaisnt my share of cheapo's with every method I use to advertise. I'm not the cheapest, seldom am, so i squash it in my presentation. Though yes, you gotta be quick contacting the customer with lead services, i do better with c4u because the lead is distributed to less contractors than SM or RenEx.

Once I get my foot in the door, unless the lead is a referral or repeat customer, I don't care much where it came from. My closing ratios are all about the same.

ultimatetouch

Grumpy I did notice this, if you try to get a hold of renex they never call you back. They started me off at 250 and then it went to 300 so I called the rep up and got no call back. I called up and left a message that I was dropping out and I would contest it on my credit card bill unless I had a call back by the end of the day. I got a call back within an hour. Also when you cancel the guy told me that they keep biling you for that month.

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Ultimatetouch
Illinois Remodeling Company, Kitchen Remodeling Chicago, Room Additions Illinois