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how do you sell leads?

         

xuron

5:27 pm on Mar 27, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Does anyone know the best way to sell leads, anything from mortgage leads, credit card leads, etc? I see alot of companies trying to sell it from a website, but thats another marketing hassle in itself... I was wondering if there was a company that would just buy them...

bjseiler

3:38 pm on Mar 28, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



We build software for lead companies so this is actually a question I can answer - most of the time I just read to learn :-) We don't buy or sell leads, just the software for managing the lead business (so please no PM's on if I want to buy leads).

How you sell your leads really depends on your volume, what position in the lead business you want to fill, and if you want to deal with a lot of customers.

Most people that want to start in the lead business either first generate leads for affiliate programs or they find lead wholesalers who will take all of their leads. Many people, especially mortgage brokers, do not realize how many middle men there are in the lead business. Sometimes there are 4-5 people in between the person that actually generated the lead and the end user (mortgage broker) that uses that lead. I call the first person the lead generator and all of the middle men are "lead brokers" and the last person who actually sells the lead to the mortgage broker sells "retail".

So, some people start out just pushing traffic to affiliate programs until they can generate enough leads to fill orders from the retail market. Other people buy leads from lead brokers to fill their gaps. Once you start selling retail, you have to be able to generate or buy enough leads to keep your clients' orders filled or you will get screamed at a lot. I have seen a lot of lead companies fail quickly because they think it will be an easy job generating and/or buying from other lead brokers to resell to their clients. It is not easy to find good sources of leads and I talk a lot of people out of the lead business (even though it costs me money, I don't like to see clients fail).

If you are a lead broker, your margins are pretty slim but then you don't have to deal with retail buyers calling about returns, etc. If you sell retail, your margins are higher but then you have to put up with customer interaction which will take a lot of time out of your day.

Anyway, I always tell people that there is always more room for another "good" lead company because the industry is full of crooks, thieves and liars.

xuron

2:46 am on Mar 29, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



so would you know a company that would buy leads?

also do you know a company that would buy something else besides mortgage leads?

eljefe3

3:54 am on Mar 29, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Welcome to WebmasterWorld.

As a general rule of thumb in the affiliate forum, we do not allow name dropping and URL dropping as this would lead to a spam fest of programs dropping their URL which leads to more URL dropping. Please either use your favorite search engine to find appropriate programs, or keep the discussions general. Thanks for understanding.

xuron

5:39 am on Mar 29, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



umm ok.. can you stickmail me some companies then.. sheesh... i doubt this would get alot of replies anyways