Episode 374 - Rick Myers

Episode 374: Rick Myers
“How to Generate More Leads with the Right Kind of 3rd Party Lead Gen Source”

Conversation with Rick Myers, the VP of Sales and Co-Owner at HelloProject, a third party lead source that connects best-in-class contractors with homeowners needing projects completed.

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  • ****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

    Rick Myers 0:00

    Hi, I'm Rick Myers and you're listening to A Shark's Perspective.

    (Music - shark theme)

    Kenneth Kinney 0:20

    Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth Kinney, but friends call me Shark. I am a keynote speaker, a strategist, a shark diver, host of this show, and your Chief Shark Officer.

    Kenneth Kinney 0:33

    For many companies small to large, who want to grow, they need leads and lots of them. But despite their efforts on their own channels, like digital, TV, print, social, etc, they need more. There are many third party lead gen companies and aggregators out there who often work in various verticals to create and sell leads and higher ed insurance and financial services, home services, etc. A lead aggregator is a company that provides services to companies who need that help in generating quality leads. And basically if you go to Google and you need a master's degree, an insurance, quote, or a shower remodeled, then odds are there multiple websites where consumers can fill out a form or make a call and connect with someone who provides a service. But for the buyer of those leads the brand itself, just pouring money into what is effectively another lead channel isn't always the best way. If it's not done with the right kind of partner, or with the right kind of internal efficiencies, you can blow through a lot of money quickly with little to show for it. And if it's not an ethical company, then dust off the attorneys. Then how do you go about generating more leads with the right kind of third party lead gen source?

    Kenneth Kinney 1:40

    Rick Meyers is the VP of Sales and Co-Owner of HelloProject, a third party lead source that connects best in class contractors with homeowners needing projects completed.

    Kenneth Kinney 1:50

    And on this episode, we will discuss lead generation, being an aggregator versus a marketing company, the irritating problem of scammers with bots, when to use and not use an external lead gen source, operational efficiencies and handling leads correctly, differentiation as a source, lead form length, differentiating your sales teams by getting to know customers better with or without a script, NFL tryouts, the Pacers the Jazz, forms and calls, and a lot lot more.

    Kenneth Kinney 2:15

    So let's tune into a lead source seller with a speed to lead shark on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

    [music]

    Kenneth Kinney 2:26

    Rick, welcome to A Shark's Perspective. If you would tell us a little bit about your background and your career to date.

    Rick Myers 2:32

    Oh, certainly. Shark. KENNETH I can do that for you. I've been around the Legion for quite a while as a top guide, Angie's List and HomeAdvisor for a bit less there probably. I don't know. It's been about seven years ago now. And started Hello project about just over four years ago with the perspective that we wanted to make sure that we had unprecedented communication and we're able to make sure we can help people with what they're looking for as far as home services. So before that I guys I been doing a lot Eisley and that when I left college at a tryout in the NFL and did that or that stint for a little bit, and then work with a major company nationwide for about 20 years selling high end products. So yeah, I've been around a lot of people and loved the home and proven industry.

    Kenneth Kinney 3:24

    So where did you play?

    Rick Myers 3:27

    I actually had a try with the Washington Redskins. Yeah. As a free agent.

    Kenneth Kinney 3:32

    Where did you go to college?

    Rick Myers 3:34

    I went to Ball State University.

    Kenneth Kinney 3:37

    Yeah. There's your Indiana roots. So

    Rick Myers 3:39

    Indiana Ruth. Yeah, I was I just moved up I lived in I was born and raised in Noblesville, Indiana. So it was only 45 minutes football state. Yeah.

    Kenneth Kinney 3:48

    So your company Hello project does a lot in home services. Why from a lead generation standpoint? And I guess it's sort of natural when you leave Angie and home advisor. But what do you think a lead aggregator like a hello project works so well in the home services space?

    Rick Myers 4:04

    For us is really that we just care. I mean, we actually care not not at home advisor Angela didn't because they definitely did. It's just it's a different situation with us where limited sources and people we want to make sure that we are able to provide the best services possible we could. And understanding that it took like I said before unprecedented communication. It's all about good, the bad and the ugly. And then most of the stuff, we don't really look at yourself as an aggregator as much as a marketing company because most of what we do is internal. I mean, we do a lot of the Google Search social media, YouTube channels, all kinds of different ways. We talked to a lot of smart people. We have some smart people within our company that know what they're doing as far as finding the proper lead and looking for the proper demographics to find the right people. It's just putting effort into it. I mean, so yeah, it's easy to find companies you can buy leads from a brokerage firm and Mark Come up and sell him. That's not what we're about. We're about delivering the best leads possible, getting feedback on our leads, and producing the best leads that we can to everybody's interested in getting leads.

    Kenneth Kinney 5:11

    So what do you think the state of the state is? Again, I know you're on the sales side, if you will, in that you're, you're selling leads. But what do you think is from an overall perspective, especially with aggregators? To your point, you're a different type of company, you and several others in this space. But when you think of it, if I could just sort of package it as an aggregator of sorts, what do you think the sort of the state of the state of the market is with lead aggregators today, and what you see as far as the things that we need to be most concerned about?

    Rick Myers 5:45

    Yeah, really good question. And it's funny you and I talked a couple of days ago, Kenneth, and we were talking about the bot situation, where there's a lot of scammers out there. There's a lot of that, I mean, and we've noticed it was crazy. A lot of people that register for stuff for a new home that are building a new home and gathering information. I think we had a situation me and my partner were talking, I think we had a situation where a lot of leads that we'd sent out, we noticed that they were all new builds. And we're like, that's kind of weird, right? Because that typically doesn't happen that part of the funnel. And so yeah, the scam and the bots and stuff like that happening now is you really I mean, you just have to pay 1000s of dollars a month with two or three different companies to find that and understand that. I think AI is the game changer. It really is. And I think that's going to help you target the right audience all the time. And then you can preset ads and marketing for years in advance. So you can go to a certain market and know exactly what you want to do what you want to present, if it's a picture of the video, that kind of thing. So AIC is a huge mover here, and the next it's happening now, it's been happening for the last probably two and a half years. But I think going into 2024, it's going to be dynamic. And I think the BOD and the robbery and the scams are never going to go away, they always find a way to do it. You just got to be smart about it. And you got to accept in some situations that your customers, right, right, when you when somebody says, Hey, I'm running, and so yeah, we normally don't run that. But we could let's talk about it. And it's always having discussions when things get a little crazy. So everything's smooth, and everything's running good and you're happy and they're happy, and then also have some go sideways. It's usually not either party. It's not the person buying the leads, or it's not us, it's something to interfere between. So we got to figure out why it happened.

    Kenneth Kinney 7:50

    You know, I'm gonna back up because I jumped into talking about this. And I sometimes forget having been in the Legion space for a lot of times that we may be talking about terms that even some of the audience may not know. But I think just to oversimplify this for people that may not be not may not understand what we're talking about with Legion aggregators. In Legion, in general, as a lot of people will go to websites like Rick's company and like other companies ng HomeAdvisor, hello project, you know, there's a lot of them in a lot of different verticals, they'll fill out a lead form, and then sell that lead with transparency to the customer or the consumer. Either, they will sell that lead to a buyer who works with a company who will then contact them for service. So when you think about the value, and I'm sure you have to go through some convincing strategies as well with companies that that look at leads from a sales standpoint, but just as a smart Legion person standpoint, when do you think a company should use a company like yours, not necessarily yours, but one like yours to supplement them with leads and when is a good use case of when they should not.

    Rick Myers 8:59

    Really get first one, I would say I would use a third party sourcing. When you get to the point where you truly understand how to work you're currently to have. We run into all kinds of companies and one of the first things I asked people is like, how do you work your leads when they come in? Walk me through a new customer walk me through the process? Where does it go? Is what his follow up? How do you work your leads. And once you figure out how to work a lead and you have the right people to do it, and you're squeezing that that rag to get all the water out of it to make sure that we're doing everything we can do and it's working, then you're always looking okay, we need more leads, because we know how to work the leads. Do not go buy a bunch of leads from our company and hello project or anybody. When you run into a situation where you don't know how to work what you have, and you're not hitting the margins you want to hit. So a lot of times people have to have their KPIs on where they want to be key performance indicator to the company and sales and making sure that you're on top of those and if you're Hitting your appointments, every closing percentage marketing cost, then you jump all over as many leads as you can get, because you know how to work the system. So don't buy him if you don't know how to work, what you're doing, do by him and as many as you can, and as you can, you know, work with, but make sure that you're monitoring that because you already know how to do it. So at the end of 30 days, if you pick a new company to work with and buy leads, you know where you need to be already, you need to share that with him on the front end. And then after 30 days, and hey, you know, you did help us, we produce more business because you we hit our numbers in a matrix that we need to head. So let's keep doing business. I wouldn't do long term agreements with anybody month to month agreements that are smartest, and just make sure you're comfortable with the way your process flows. And you'll be fine with any company.

    Kenneth Kinney 10:50

    Well, I listen to a lot of smart marketers across a lot of different fields of marketing, then you hear people nonstop talking about pour money into whichever channel they're arguing for the most whether it be digital, whether it be content, whether it be TV advertising, whatever it is, whatever the channel, direct mail, email, whatever. You don't hear a lot of people arguing for aggregator. So I'm going to, say aggregators from a third party lead source. Why should that be the place that somebody pour more money into, as opposed to a lot of the say traditional channels, knowing that they know how to work their leads? But why should they spend more money with third party lead source as opposed to pouring more money into digital or TV or something else?

    Rick Myers 11:35

    Yeah, really good question. I think what you find with quite a few of the aggregators, now, there's lots of them. And they weren't there was there wasn't God several years ago, there's hardly there wasn't a lot of them, right, there's a lot wasn't a lot of choices. Well, it's now been created, that you need the sources, because they can't get enough leads from those other sources you just mentioned. So every market is completely different on how you market to find that customer. So guys, there's areas where mailers still work, and there's TV commercials work, the best companies find what works best to do and do a combination. And they still find that they need somebody else to help them get leads. So when you look at an aggregator or a third party or someone like us, it's more of a marketing kind of company, because we do it internally, we just hire a lot of smart people that are a lot smarter than us. And listen, go figure out Google, tell us what you know about Google, you've been doing it for 1520 years, take all that knowledge and figure it out for us. So we're able to pay people to do that. And just focus on that one thing. Same as social media, when it came along, like who can do the social media who understands, you know how that work, right. And then once those people are on your team, and you figure it out, then you can drive a lot of solid business to these other companies, they're using those other sources. But what I found more than anything, is there's not enough leads. And there's definitely not enough good leads flowing in everyday to businesses. Right? If it's not word of mouth, you know, there's people have options in shops. So it's a lot different than it used to be with all the different options of saying, you know, I want this, we want that. And I can go find this here, there, what have you. One of the best

    Kenneth Kinney 13:15

    arguments, I always find for working with a third party sources, you can put $1 figure to the lead very easily. You can't do that with a lot of your digital marketing efforts when you don't know if it's going to work or not. And it's, it's one of the things that I you know, I just ran through this with somebody who wanted to pull back on their digital spin for PPC, because they wanted to invest more heavily into leads where they had a quantifiable number around them. And granted, they weren't in a, their, you know, their lifetime value could wasn't necessarily part of the measurement because they do a shorter term sale that doesn't really repeat over even a 20 year period. So I thought that was interesting as they were starting to pull back. But when you start thinking about all the traffic that you get your traffic from, what do you see is a big challenge with digital marketing today because most of the time people are filling them out on the forum. And in other you like any other marketing company, you have to figure out a best way to get people to interact with your platform to do that. So what are the kinds of things that you guys think through when you're trying to design a better mousetrap if you will, for leads?

    Rick Myers 14:25

    Yeah, really good question. It's funny, it's so different in every region of the country. It's just It blows my mind. So there's short forms, there's long forms, there's, you know, you typically save you ask less questions. It's a less qualified customer, not necessarily it's time management. So then it's the message you put across or a video you sent to him or what, what have you but we have found the deeper funnels tend to weed out a lot of people and sometimes it may not You may weed out people who don't want to weed out and maybe somebody, you know, was saying, I got to, you know, have my kitchen redone. And I just feel something that really quick, I just kind of want to get an idea. I don't want to talk to him, I have some gimmick, quote, they don't want to go through the funnel, because they don't know all the answers. So what we've been doing is, we run it through a deep funnel. And in some cases, it may be 40% of those people fill out all the information, you're asking for the time, everything you I mean, every further down the funnel, they are when you turn that lead over, the better, you're gonna have a chance of an appointment and closing them. So we're finding in some cases, 40% of people fill out all information, there's solid, then the other 60%, probably 80% of those people are just time wasters. They have no idea. They're just curious. So you get them out of the way. But there's 20% of their that still there's meat on the bone, right, there's still people going, I don't want to fill out all this information right now. But I am interested in and you still have to capture that information we do. And then we have people calling those people that are tech or will personally check them ourselves and do an automation. To find out if that person really meant not to go through the whole funnel be it's, it's crazy, but it's the right message. And when you do them both. So I say the short form and short form and long form are good. And if somebody leaves a channel or filling out the information midstream, then you want to contact him and make sure that hey, you left early, we want to make sure you're taking care of you still want that kitchen remodel.

    Kenneth Kinney 16:31

    So one of the other huge issues that I run into all the time and half for the last two decades dealing with this stuff is I know a lot of companies who buy a lot of leads a lot of billion dollar brands and a lot of several million dollar brands. And a lot of the common problems they run into I'm sure you see over and over and over again. But what advice would you give teams for closing the leads better that they receive? Not necessarily from Hello project, but from, you know, even your past companies, if you were thinking about how they could have closed Angie's leads better in the past. I think a lot of times it's hard for call center teams, it's hard for performance marketers, it's hard for owners and people that are funding all this to sometimes understand their own sausage making process. And I'd love to hear what your advice is for closing the leads better, regardless of the source.

    Rick Myers 17:28

    Yeah, I will tell you 100% If you understand people hate to be sold, but they love to buy. So personality is everything. And I talked I've talked to do a lot of training with call center people and salespeople. And there's so much difference between the power salesperson and the call center person. The call center is filled scripted, it is scripted. And a lot of that happens because they prejudge what that person may be or you know, maybe the lead source he comes in from, but they do a lot of pre judging of a customer. And I'm telling if you sit down with them, and you treat them and you listen and always say listen to agree, repeat, isolate and close. So I always want to listen to what they have to say agree that I hear it. Repeat that back to him to make sure we're on the same page, isolate that situation we're talking about like, do you offer financing or what have you any closed at one situation now, it's easier. So I would say with a call center people it's good to know that client a little better, and not just as another phone call and I gotta bust out another phone calls because they all come together. And all those call centers tend to do is find that obvious buyers, and the obvious people that aren't buying. Well, hopefully we've done a good job in marketing, make sure that that helps you to when you get it. But it's really saying okay, let's talk about what you want. This call is about you. It's not about me. Thanks for taking time today. You want to get a bathroom model. Let's talk about that a second. Right. So I think it just slowed down a little bit. Understand they love to buy they hate to be sold, and let it be about them and not about you. And it's gonna run a lot smoother. I

    Kenneth Kinney 19:12

    think another one of the ones that I'll add as well. And again, I run into this all the time speedily. Regardless of whatever kind of fancy dialer you may have in your place. It is remarkable how often I have filled out a form or how often a customer fills out a form and it takes people to call somebody at night and they don't call them on a they fill out a form on a Friday night but they don't call them until Monday afternoon when they get caught up. And then they wonder why the customer doesn't want to talk to on Monday afternoon. They talked to somebody else on Saturday and they bought in it happens over and over because they don't really think about that operational efficiency,

    Rick Myers 19:47

    or we didn't really think about that shark that's a given thing, man. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Especially when you when you think about everybody wants gratification they want an answer. Now we have zero patience. because everything handed to us so quickly, we want everything done for as fast. So for some company not to follow up on a lead as soon as it comes in, because people want that. And what's that secret number five minutes or less. But I can tell you where I really see speed lead is S is SMS is texting. And I can tell you what really works is a picture. Maybe before and after something, a Thanks for choosing such and such a company. Here's the job, we just completed love to jump on call click on the calendar, just a text message is 70 80% chance of getting you know a response than if you call them I would text first and then call but I would do that, like you say immediately to be delete is important.

    Kenneth Kinney 20:48

    So I love though what you said about, you know, differentiating, especially with personality with a call center team, I want to ask another differentiation question. Because there are a lot of companies in this space. How do you go about especially with Hello project in like you did before, when you're with other companies? How do you really differentiate yourself from other companies? Because again, a lot of lot of times if somebody's going to your website, they're looking to get a new bathtub or a new kitchen cabinets or whatever it is, when they go to your site, they do have choices. And for years to be the best choice. What do you guys do to make it the best choice? Granted? We know that people often fill out on other pages too, they may fill out more than multiple forms. But still, what makes yours a better one?

    Rick Myers 21:35

    Why do we keep it Sesame Street? Simple? Yeah, yeah, I mean, we have found the easier the left's of the fluff. And the more this streamlined, simple, like, it's funny, and I'll say this, because it's so true. So when these people fill in information, wherever you may find it, whoever is the best at finding the golden a kind of thing, right? Who's the best at finding that right person? It's, they don't even remember your company's name. after the fact. And I'm talking, they will fill out information with us. Oops, it over the information says hello perfectly knows how to people go, I don't know, I just found it online. Or I don't know if my, maybe my friend told me about it. That's what that's what's crazy. So we try to keep it Sesame Street simple, very clean, and simple, soft colors on ads that people look at Gosh, that's, I trust that. And then of course, you have trusted forms and everything at the bottom and the BBB and all this other stuff to build that trust. But it's really keeping things simple. It's not overcomplicating trying to get somebody's information.

    Kenneth Kinney 22:43

    That's why I'm asking people where they heard about you is the worst responded answer you will ever get. Because it's probably the TV ad they saw 10 minutes before, but they just filled out a form or they heard it on the radio driving over. And that's the only thing they remember. And just ran into him. It's it happens. Every

    Rick Myers 23:04

    candidate we're branding for everyone, everybody's branding, companies, we're all branding. And it's like, we're just branding our industry, we're not really branding our names, because people are going to just it's it's an impulse, I found this first I'll go here. Oh, I want to go here. Yeah, it's just know where to really the the AI comes in artificial intelligence comes in. When you start to, you're able to monetize that information and find out say, Okay, we know that females between the ages of 30 and 45 typically do their shopping at this time, or looking at this ad or that ad, that will change everything. Because you've already got behavior habits that people have that now you can track, and you don't have to send a message 24/7 You send it when they're looking, you just send it to the right people at the right time. And they go oh, that's where you see it now. I mean, I every time I drive by Costco, there's like here in Salt Lake City, there's I don't know there's seven or eight ginormous Costco is, every time I either say the word Costco or drive by there, I get a message. And that's a lot of other companies. So they're trying to find out when's the best time to approach this person, where they're, they're going to be a better lead. And that's what we're really focused on now is like, let's not waste any more time or money, or people's efforts or company's time and their money and really try to go fishing in the right area at the right time.

    Kenneth Kinney 24:26

    Well, one more thing, we started talking about bots and fraud at the at the front end. And I also wanted to kind of close on that note and talk a little bit about what you and what I'd like to believe all the ethical companies do to ensure that you do what you can to make certain that they are TCPA compliant, and then all the all the things so talk a little bit about that about what it's what's important for a third party source to do to make certain that you know, just from a transparency standpoint, that consumers know that their data is being protected. That The company that buys the lead understands that it's the the sessions being recorded, and so on and so forth.

    Rick Myers 25:06

    Yeah, so T PCI compliant, and all the other regulations and stuff that you have to follow to gather people's information. And then you have to have them opt in to be able to texted the contractors and can text them and call them communicate. And they're signing off on that when they fill out the information. I think more than the obvious because you have to do that you got to do all the legal stuff, you got to do everything the right way. Otherwise, you're going to be in hot water. So everything that needs to be done the right way we do the right way we pay the companies that need to make sure that it's done for us, and then we check on that constantly. So that's a given you have to do that. But I think the second part of this is knowing that you have good, we always tell people we want to good and bad and the ugly. And the companies that we work with, we say listen, we know if our program doesn't work. It's not you, it's us. Because we know you know how to work and lead when added follow up, you know you do everything you do we know, we know that it's going to be treated correctly. So it only comes back to us. What blows my mind more than anything is amount of companies that will not give you reporting. They want tension. And we want this report and disposition reporting. We're saying listen, we want to know the good, bad and the ugly of our leads. And if it's working or not. So we want disposition. And we then can optimize then then we can go and say okay, these leads in these sources didn't work with this did work. I think that stems from when the lead business started long, long time ago, probably you know, 30 years ago or so 35 really strong is that when it first was introduced, those people were scamming sale and just trash. There is no credits, you can never talk to him if he bought the leads that you were stuck. And that was horrible. So that put a big scar on the industry. So people like oh, you really do care. You do want this if they weren't used to giving it because he even asked him for a deposition or give me reporting they go wat How do I get that? For hate? So I think what happened over the years, it's starting to get better now where people are saying, Well, I do have any information I want to share with you. And honestly, it helps because then you can optimize correctly. And that's another part of being you know, the kind of company you want to work with is someone that's able to say Listen, give us everything we'll take your phone call anytime and tell us what's going on.

    Kenneth Kinney 27:30

    Well, Rick asked this of everybody's that's been on the show, you're not gonna find any in Salt Lake. But what is your favorite kind of shark and why?

    Rick Myers 27:38

    I'm intrigued by the bull shark. Because that cat that cat can go everywhere. Dry. It's up in the rivers. It's aggressive, and it's pretty thick. I'd say out of all the sharks. The obvious is great. Why? Because of the size, but I gotta go to Miko.

    Kenneth Kinney 28:02

    Okay. Yeah, speed the lead fast shark. So, yeah. I just dove with bull sharks two weeks ago, saw them on my second dive, big fat head and they're really annoying and aggressive. Alright, well, it's that special time in the show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions that you're going to be asked today? Yes. All right. So you're from Indiana, but you live in Utah. But let's just say you went to a game on a neutral site. Who would you pull for? Utah Jazz or Indiana? Pacers?

    Rick Myers 28:39

    Oh, Pacers. I'm a Reggie Miller fan. I went to tons of games in the 90s. Yeah. Pacers.

    Kenneth Kinney 28:45

    Yeah, alright, number two, for a lead gen form. Are you a preference to short forms or long forms?

    Rick Myers 28:53

    of preference? I like long forms. As long as I can also get information and people that leave that long form, text him and communicate with them.

    Kenneth Kinney 29:03

    Fair enough. All right. Number three, you mentioned your phone listening to what your target about Costco or Sam's Club.

    Rick Myers 29:12

    Costco hands down. Same so I'm an anti Walmart. Costco. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm an anti Walmart. So I'm pretty sure an anti Sam's Costco all the

    Kenneth Kinney 29:25

    way I would agree. Yeah, I think even Sam's Club is when I'm near it. Costco is where I want to go all right, yeah. For lists they they perform at the same level and cost the same amount when trying to put them on neutral territory. So the math works out. Would you rather have form leads or calls

    Rick Myers 29:47

    Wow. I calls if they were delivered correctly. You mean as a company? Yes for Sure. If I had somebody on both ends, we're doing the right thing. Yeah.

    Kenneth Kinney 30:04

    All right. Number five. The most important question you're gonna be asked today is biscuits or cornbread?

    Rick Myers 30:10

    Biscuits. Okay. Biscuits and Gravy. Is that my tip my home run?

    Kenneth Kinney 30:14

    There you go. Alright, So Rick, where can people find out more about you find out what's going on and HelloProject and more.

    Rick Myers 30:21

    You're like, go to hell project usa.com and check our website out. You can call me directly or myself. 317-442-5222 Shoot me an email Rick at HelloProjectUSA.com. And yeah, love to talk to you tell you what we're all about.

    Kenneth Kinney 30:41

    Alright Rick. Thank you so much for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

    Rick Myers 30:44

    Thank you.

    [music]

    Kenneth Kinney 30:50

    So there was my conversation with Rick Meyers, the VP of Sales and Co-Owner at HelloProject, a third party lead source that connects best in class contractors with homeowners needing projects completed. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from my conversation with him.

    Kenneth Kinney 31:07

    First, my favorite part was about when someone should or should not work with a third party lead gen source, he basically said that you should use one when you truly understand how to work to lead you have and it's so incredibly true. Too many companies get on the hamster wheel of churn too early by buying too many leads without achieving real operational efficiencies and how they handle those leads. I've talked about the acquisition addiction issue or ECW. Addiction before we move on way before we're ready way too often. Get ready first, get your processes, scripts, timing dialer and CRM, personnel measurement, cost and marketing and KPIs. Get them all ready first, and then a sharp decrease. You may buy more, I'd have to wait but it would save you a lot of money and make you a lot more.

    Kenneth Kinney 31:54

    Second, we spoke about the annoying problem that bots represent and how they gum up the system with bad leads. Look, if you're working with a third party Legion source, then make a certain as you can that they're transparent and ethical with the traffic that produces those leads you end up buying. Make sure that they follow TCPA guidelines that they have recorded sessions to validate traffic encourage them to join organizations like the consumer consent council so they'll be more aware of the guidelines. You cannot fix everything but at least you can develop a better relationship with what is basically a channel partners supplying you leads who also doesn't want to send you junk traffic created by bots.

    Kenneth Kinney 32:30

    Third, love the advice for closing leads better call center teams often over script their reps. Polish salespeople including salespeople at a call center, know the script, but show their personality a little more and get to know the customer better than just one following the script. Give your peeps a little room to help make that experience unique and not a drill. And don't forget speed lead. It's still a problem. Call qualified leads quickly not to like desperate fast but don't wait a week either. And then it suddenly becomes a rehash campaign.

    Kenneth Kinney 32:58

    Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

    Kenneth Kinney 33:03

    Thank you again for the privilege of your time. And I'm so thankful to everyone who listens.

    Kenneth Kinney 33:08

    Want to grow your business with more leads. And join us here on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.

    (Music - shark theme)


Connect with Rick Myers:

Picture of a public domain photo of monster truck Megalodon.

Shark Trivia

Did You Know that the monster truck Megalodon set a World Record….

.….in 2020 when it jumped over 8 monster trucks? Driver Adam Anderson performed the jump at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Bradenton, Florida on June 25th. 

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