Contractors.com

easymoney

Holy cripes! I just got through the 20 minute company sales pitch video, has any one else heard this? just click on the Contractors.com banner (up there) and listen to the whole thing if you can... it's worse than water boarding!

but it's interesting, you wont pay for leads, just hand over 10% of an awarded project... this amounts to just a little less than our average profit, what will homeowners think when they hear that their project might cost 10% more by using Contractor.com?

I mean I for one will be taking that 10% into account when doing my bid, am I wrong here!? are these Lead generating companies running out of gimmicks? or is this a great idea?

rbsremodeling

The model they proposed has been used by a few smaller companies around here. It is the most effective method I have seen. They have a different take when they "the lead companies" have a bit of skin in the game.

If you don't have a problem paying the fee go for it. Think of the 10% fee as part of your advertising/marketing budget.

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RidgeWalker

10% is way to much for a lead no matter who gets it for you. That is a complete sales commission for a salesman who:

Makes the sale
Pick's colors
Gets Deposit
Checks the Job
Collects the Job
Anything else required to see the job through to completion.

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SLSTech

It is a great concept - but I have to agree with RidgeWalker, 10% is way to much. 3 to 7% would be more like it based on the size of the job. The bigger the job, the lower the %, my original thought was 5% would be OK, but running the numbers I would have to go with a floating scale for the win win win approach.

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rbsremodeling

They have a cap I think of $750 is the max charged for a job

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easymoney

$750 Dollars? hmmn, thats not bad if the project is $50,000, but from $7,500 it seems a bit steep. I agree with the guys, it should be a smaller percentage as the bid goes up many companies are running on 8-15% profit on total year sales. It's bad enough uncle sam makes more on a job than we do. the other thing; is their much paper work? I mean it seems like i'd have to show the winning bid (or maybe the homeowner does) for them to get 10%.

Right now it might be harder to slice 10% from the total cost, since everyone is lowballing each other...

HSConstruction

don't forget the $5000 "deposit" and membership fees

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Ed the Roofer

The high 10% seemed extreme enough, but pile that on top of it and they better be signing the contracts and providing supervision for that fee.

Ed

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rbsremodeling

I can see this working for the really big remodeling contractors that have 50K+ marketing budgets and 10-30 guys to keep busy,the fees would be a drop in the bucket to them.

It is not a program for everyone. But then again maybe it is structured to be that way?

I have seen this model of sales lead before locally and it has worked out well for the contractors, homeowners and business that runs it.

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cbscreative

That just leads me to wonder what you would be competing against when you bid. I can't say anything about contractor.com because I don't know anything about them. But in my work, there are sites like elance and guru, and I don't know of any respectable service providers bidding for work this way. For all their hype, these sites are really just a feeding frenzy of designers desperate for work. Not the best plan for the client IMO, but the people who are attracted to this model aren't my clients anyway.

Whether the same principle is true for contractor.com, I have no idea, but it is something I would be concerned about if I were exploring this option. It appears they have everything to gain and nothing to lose. That always makes my flags go up. I could easily be wrong, but I'd want to be sure before taking the plunge.

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Steve Chittenden
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One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

rbsremodeling

5K deposit would keep a lot of riff raff out or at least poor riff raff.

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cbscreative

Definitely the poor riff raff anyway.

At least the riff raff need to be within driving distance. In things like web design and graphics (my examples above), dealing with a local source is optional. Just think if they could outsource remodeling from anywhere in the world. I'm sure someone is trying to figure out a way to do that.

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Steve Chittenden
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One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

StefanC

^ my remodeling robots are almost ready...

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KraftMaster

I"ll post results since I'm one of the only ones I see that took the plunge --

See ya in July for the verdict

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ottagosoon

How would you like to get that kind of money up front. Imagine getting 500 contractors to sign up and get an average of 5K from each for zip code territories = 1.25 million dollars in the bank. Not counting this thing called a retainer. Well that's another 1.25 million dollars in the bank. Interest alone will run your company and anything you get additional from the contractors is gravy on top of you potatoes.
Mean while you're out running around chasing home owners around giving out FREE?? estimates.

Here is the cost below. Don't forget to read the part about the retainer/deposit. That's in case you dead beats don't pay contractors.com do them for the job fee.

So yes it is only 7.5% to a max of 750 dollars. Not 10% of the job.

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