Always aim to get new clients on a call. Your chances of acquiring a customer are much higher when someone hears your voice and gets the reassurance you’re a real, trustworthy person. Plus, it gives you a way to follow-up in case the platform doesn’t give you their contact information, and they don’t check the app after their first message to you.
Always aim to get new clients on a call. Your chances of acquiring a customer are much higher when someone hears your voice and gets the reassurance you’re a real, trustworthy person. Plus, it gives you a way to follow-up in case the platform doesn’t give you their contact information, and they don’t check the app after their first message to you.
Always give yourself an excuse to follow up through email, like telling them you’d like to send over an official estimate. That way, you can add them to your CRM and follow up on multiple fronts.
With FieldPulse, you can create detailed estimates, quotes, bids, and proposals on the spot with your phone, tablet, or computer and send them directly to clients through email. You can also offer customers tiered pricing options you can walk through with images and descriptions.
You’ll also be able to group services and products together with detailed descriptions for common jobs, and quickly adjust prices and other calculations on the fly.
Become familiar with the site’s refund policy for fake leads. Sometimes people get confused using these sites, and submit themselves as a lead even though they’re not actively looking – just browsing through prices.
You may run into situations where you’ll call a lead, and it will be another contractor who was just browsing his competitors’ prices. Or, sometimes you might be matched with customers that aren’t local in neighborhoods you service, part of your industry, or who provided fake contact information.
At least once a month, you’ll need to go through your leads and pinpoint if any fall under this category, and then call the company or submit a form to get a refund. A good lead purchasing site, like HomeAdvisor, will refund you when that happens.
Don’t give up on a lead – call back leads you can’t get responses from after 5-8 attempts over the course of the next two months, or until you decide a lead is dead. Even if you submit a refund credit for not being able to get in contact with a lead, it doesn’t mean that lead won’t ever pick up.
Often, buyers from lead purchasing services are still in the early research stage of the buying cycle, comparing quotes to get a sense of the price and aren’t ready to buy yet. But this doesn’t mean they’re not interested. Sales from these sources can come in as far out as 45 days out.
A good rule of thumb is to follow up until that customer tells you to stop.
If you can’t reach a customer because the platform didn’t provide their information, you can even try a quick Google search for their real phone number and email address instead of the call tracking/disguised one the platform usually provides. Approach it as you being helpful, trying to fix issues the platform has created by doing a quick search – don’t be a creep who combed the entire internet looking for their information.
Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews and referrals – this way, you’re taking a sale that costs $200 and getting another job, so you can split the cost down for every additional sale you get through that customer. And a bonus? Those leads will be a lot warmer, so you won’t have to work as hard to sell them.
Upsell, as mentioned, these people are looking for a professional and expect a higher price point even if they’re price shopping. Sell them on the value, not the price. Try your best to make the customer a permanent one, so you’re only paying for the initial connection with them.
And always, always follow up with the customer directly year over year and month over month in less intrusive ways like retargeting ads, email, or the occasional physical mail like a quarterly newsletter or seasonal discounts.
Now that we’ve discussed the basics of lead purchasing services, let’s take a look at some of the most popular options you can choose from.
Angi is arguably the largest, most popular lead generation service for contractors and pours millions into advertising their service. So, you’ll have no shortage of leads with exposure on a national level. Angi’s list works best for smaller projects and one-off jobs.
If you fit this description and have the time to work leads as soon as they get in, Angi’s probably going to be the best bang for your buck because you’re paying for a subscription, not per lead.
HomeAdvisor, meanwhile, works best for bigger, more expensive jobs or jobs with repeat business – which you’ll generally want to aim for regardless. After you join Angi Leads (formerly HomeAdvisor Pro), you can pay a monthly/annual fee to be listed and then pay for every individual lead generated by HomeAdvisor.
Like Angi, you’ll get a high volume of high quality leads. But, unlike Angi, you have a lot more flexibility and power over how you’re presented to leads and when you get leads.
Profiles are customizable, you can pick and choose which leads you want, and it’s easy to modify spend targets and pause leads so you don’t waste money during times when you don’t have the bandwidth to properly work leads. Homeadvisor is also usually pretty good about crediting unqualified leads.
If you want to purchase leads from Yelp, you’ll need lightning fast response times. Yelp doesn’t give you clients’ information, so there’s no way to follow up with customers unless they reply via messenger.
Plus, your response time is displayed on your profile, and customers will likely pick the business they believe they can get the quickest response from first. Have a script prepared that you can tweak, and try to get customers’ phone numbers ASAP by asking if you can call.
Also be aware that Yelp’s Request A Quote feature can be deceptive. If you have this feature turned on for your profile, you could also be sending traffic to your competitors. When a user finishes filling out information about their request, they’ll be presented with the option to ‘Get competing quotes’, which is selected by default.
Yelp also makes it incredibly difficult to get high quality reviews because of how their algorithm works.
On paper, Porch sounds good. They’re partnered with big name companies like Lowes, the BBB, and other retailers to find professionals to do home improvement projects. Their leads are cheap. You can pick and choose which leads you want, and you can even see how many other contractors received those leads before reaching out to them.
Unfortunately however, you won’t get a ton of leads from them – and they don’t always offer the best quality leads. Often, these leads are price shoppers who stumble upon Porch while price shopping deals. And what’s worse? Their credit system to refund bad leads isn’t always the best.
Thumbtack works a little differently than the aforementioned lead purchasing services. On Thumbtack, you get to pick the jobs you want, but it’s first come, first serve and only 5 people can bid on each project. So, you have to get in quick if you want to get the really good, big projects. Create multiple templates for messages to bid fast and use.
What’s also cool about Thumbtack? The lead price gets discounted as it’s displayed to more and more companies and Thumbtack only charges you if a customer reaches out to you.
To increase your sense of trust among users, use a photograph of yourself in your icon instead of your logo and spend some time really bulking up your profile to make it robust and complete. Complete the background check. Create and post a video where clients can get to know you. Whatever helps make you feel like a real person.
Like Thumbtack, Bark handles the process of compiling project details and you can pick and choose which jobs you’re interested in. However, you’ll need to purchase credits in order to contact leads and submit proposals, and the cost of each proposal varies based on the service, job value, and competition.
There are a number of benefits to trying out the service though. If you don’t win business from your first purchase, Bark will refund you. Profiles are highly customizable. And you get customers’ phone numbers and email addresses to follow up.
There are a number of building leads websites out there, but of them, BuildZoom is the most interesting. Its results actually take expertise into account, like licensing, and it encourages you to meet clients in-person. While you’re charged 2.5% of your agreed upon price with clients, BuildZoom only charges you when you’re hired – which means you can technically generate leads for free.
Houzz is aimed more at residential businesses. Unlike the other options on this list, you don’t pay directly for leads. Instead, you have the option of purchasing their Ultimate Plan, which includes access to their lead generation program.
This gives you access to the Project Match feature where up to 5 pros are matched with homeowners based on a questionnaire homeowners fill out. Then, you and the homeowner receive either other’s information so you can explore working together.
Lula is a lead generation service that specializes in property managers and real estate investors. It charges a percent of every completed project, and can help you get your foot in the door with businesses with the best connections who also happen to offer long term work.
This one shouldn’t even count, but it’s confused for a lead purchasing service, so often we’re going to mention it anyway. Unlike the other companies mentioned on this list, TaskRabbit isn’t aimed at professional, licensed companies. It’s more aimed at contractors operating independently like handymen. Pro- This guarantees an actual job and lets you avoid the back and forth of winning jobs. Con- Customers are looking for one-off work and TaskRabbit takes a rather large percent of the profit.
You’re now well prepared to utilize lead purchasing platforms, should you choose to use them. We’d recommend that you put more emphasis on your organic marketing efforts, but if lead purchasing fits well with your business model and budget, go ahead and give it a try. Remember, only utilize lead purchasing services when you have an ample amount of marketing budget stored up.
