Fatrank Podcast

Kasra Dash: So I'm joined with James and we're going to be talking about real time leads. What are real time leads?

James Dooley: Real time leads are where someone fills in a form and instantly that lead gets sent through to the client. Believe it or not, there are certain companies that don't sell real time leads. It could be that they're doing some sort of quizzes and they're getting the information. “Oh we think that this could be an inquiry for these,” and it could be the next day that they're sending it. Stuff like that. Or they might not have specifically filled in a form to a certain company. That means they're not getting the real time leads. There are also certain lead generation companies that only want leads between nine and five. If someone fills in a form at seven, they might then wait to send it through to them at 9:01.

Kasra Dash: Ah I see. So they're getting it between nine and five but actually it's not a real time lead. It's two hours old.

James Dooley: And the other leads that have been sent through have been real time.

Kasra Dash: Is this a common thing?

James Dooley: A good lead generation company would send real time exclusive leads. But a lot of lead generation companies don't do exclusive leads and some of them don't do real time leads. Another part of it is where they're not real time leads. Some lead generation companies don't provide exclusive leads. What they'll do is almost a bidding process. Whoever pays the most for the lead gets the real time lead. The second bidder might get it five minutes later. The third might get it ten minutes later. The fourth might get it twenty minutes later. The fifth might get it an hour later. The person that's paying the most has the best chance of converting because they're getting real time leads.

James Dooley: For us, we want to deal with a business that gets real time exclusive leads but gets back to them straight away. This is why KPIs are important. Once they get a real time exclusive lead they need to get in touch straight away. They say if it's over three minutes, you've got a 50 percent less conversion chance. If your normal conversion rate is 10 percent and you take longer than three minutes, it'll drop to 5 percent. Fifty percent less conversion after three minutes.

Kasra Dash: So if I am already buying leads, how would I know if the leads are real time?

James Dooley: Probably the easiest way is to find where the people are generating the leads from and fill in a mystery form. Call yourself something else, put your number in there, and check how long it takes. Is it within ten seconds? If not, how long is it? If someone fills in a form, they should get that inquiry instantly.

Kasra Dash: That could be a big issue for your sales team as well.

James Dooley: Oh it's a huge issue. Massively affects conversion. As a business owner, you might think you're getting leads and they look like quality leads, but they could be a day old. You could have the best sales guy, you could have “Wolf of Wall Street” closing the deals, but he isn’t converting a day-old locksmith lead.

James Dooley: To be fair, a lot of companies buy leads and they don't look at the terms and conditions. They don't look at the privacy policy. They don't see what they're actually buying. They just presume it's real time exclusive leads.

Kasra Dash: Is that where you'd start? Look at your contract and stuff like that?

James Dooley: Absolutely. Ask the sales guy, “Are these real time exclusive leads?” If he says no, then ask yourself if this is the best lead generation company for you. I'm sick of speaking to business owners who are frugal with subcontractors but don't check their marketing KPIs. Make the lead generation company accountable. Make the SEO agency accountable. Make the PPC company accountable.

If I've spent £10,000 this month on leads and you've only brought me £2,000 worth of business, I can't keep doing it.

James Dooley: For SEO, I want to know what they've done. Rankings, traffic, impressions, backlinks, citations, articles. If it's PPC, I'm looking at cost per click, quality score, conversion cost, cost per acquisition. If it costs £1,000 to get a £1,000 job, it's not worth doing.

Dragons’ Den would crucify you if you didn't know those numbers.

James Dooley: Our model is rank and rent. Real time exclusive leads straight into the customer’s inbox. If they're good at converting, they make good profit and pay us out of the profits. No fees for SEO, PPC or leads. If I send 100 leads and none convert, they don't pay us.

But if they're genuine leads and the customer can't convert, I've probably got the wrong customer.

Kasra Dash: Let's say you have a client like that. What steps do they need to take before even working with you? Are you looking at their reviews, website, what KPIs?

James Dooley: If they want our real time leads, which are the crème de la crème, I want to make sure they've got a decent website. An email address with their brand, not a Gmail account. Their quote template makes a big difference.

Two quotes side by side, people often choose the one that looks nicer.

James Dooley: How many times have you driven past a takeaway and thought “That looks good”? You’ve never tasted the food. It’s just the sign. Same with menus.

But in business, people judge your quote template the same way.

Kasra Dash: Typically speaking, a place that has a good quote template or good signage has probably spent money on high-quality products or services.

James Dooley: Exactly. And it doesn’t cost much. £20 for a graphic designer to create a letterhead template. A great bit of advice is fill in forms on five competitors' websites. See what their quotes look like. Compare them. Ask people which they'd choose. Remove the price then add the price.

Some people choose best value based on appearance.

James Dooley: Improve your quote wording. Add details. Make your proposal look more valuable. That can win or lose jobs. It can be the difference between us working with you or not.

James Dooley: Too many business owners judge SEO by budget alone. £50 a month? Not enough. If you're not good at converting leads, I won't sell leads to you because you'd become a nightmare client.

James Dooley: Google your name. Forget what your website says. Look at everything else online. If there's bad press, do a digital PR campaign. Increase reviews. Move all your offline good work online.

Kasra Dash: Just going back to the quote template, let's say you're getting 10 new inquiries a week. Over 300 a year. That's 300 people seeing your quote template. If your template hasn't been updated in years, add colour, add sales copy, it will help.

James Dooley: Some don't even send a PDF. They send quotes in an email. It looks fine until the customer prints it off and the logos don’t print. A PDF gets you halfway there.

Ten pages behind it explaining products and benefits can be evergreen, with only page one changing.

James Dooley: That’s how we decide whether to work with someone for real time exclusive leads.

Kasra Dash: Anything else to add?

James Dooley: If you want a consistent flow of quality inquiries, fill in the form at FatRank.com/contact. Give us your website, your niche, what you want to generate leads for and locations. We'll see if we can work with you.

If we can't, we’ll tell you why and give you best practices. Improve your reputation, improve your setup, then re-apply in six months.