wvfan

National Director of Sales

Lead Generation Companies: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Has anyone had any success utilizing a lead generation company? I'm a sales team of 1, so I can use all the help I can get with cold outreach. I have using a company to target leads and they just have not been putting up the numbers they promised.

I'm wondering if I just havent been giving them the right direction. Should I have them focused on specific industries or target certain areas of the country?

The product is a health benefit for employers. ROI is good for any company over 500 people.

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Woody

Politicker

Business Development Executive

I worked for 2 different lead generation companies. I had two very different experiences.

The first company I worked for tended to hire 40 + year old sales veterans and paid a very good base wage with moderate performance bonuses. I was the youngest in the company and probably was only hired because I came at a time they were short of help. Every thing was on the level and generally speaking we worked very hard for our customers.

The second company I worked for years later was very different. It was not uncommon to fire several people every week. After two years with the company I was 5th in seniority with 50 + employees.

They would hire anyone and there was a training class of 5+ every two weeks or so.

It was common place for people working on a project not to understand what their customer did.

They wanted to have a cool culture (to attract suckers and pay them nothing) so my prospects got to here rap music in the background with n-bombs being dropped.

It was not unheard of for prospecting activity to be fabricated and presented to the client because we hadn't started their project weeks after accepting the PO.

Typical cost per person 10,000 per month. Cost per appointment $500 - $1200

So..... be careful with that.

wvfan

Fire Starter

National Director of Sales

This helps. We also just got asigned a new "team" so it sounds like I'm working with a company that has a culture closer to your second job.

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

Lead Generation is an incredibly broad term. What specifically are they doing for you and how are you billed? @wvfan

wvfan

Fire Starter

National Director of Sales

They are cold emailing and cold calling with their internal SDR. Their call to connect is extremely low .02%. Billed monthly.

They created scripts based on a questionaire, but I keep having to give them my own scripts.

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

Gotcha, so you've essentially hired an external SDR team?

wvfan

Fire Starter

National Director of Sales

Yes exactly. We're a startup so it was less expensive. I was wondering if anyone had any luck using one of these/ any advise on how to get the most out of them.

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

I've sold lead gen services and there are so many different types that fit different models. We sold inbound lead inquiries on a shard lead model. One person teams did not do well with that primarily due to bandwidth issues

wvfan

Fire Starter

National Director of Sales

This company has only generated 1 lead in 2 months. I understand the bandwith issues. Managing them is becoming a second job.

What was your companies typical output for leads a month?

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

We had a completely different biz model. It wasn't SDR sourced, it was marketing form fills in the thousands/month for various categories. They'd come in very quickly and speed to lead is an enormous factor. It worked best with SDR teams.

If I were you, I'd try to work with someone who bills on a cost per meeting attended type rate.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

We worked with one such company but it didn't work out well. Instead of training them a couple times we couldn't find that seriousness in them and had to discontinue.

E.G. not a single qualified prospects attended the meeting or even heard about us.

When you say biller monthly, is it flat fee per month or per lead?

Woody

Politicker

Business Development Executive

I have about 5 years in lead generation. One of my customers paid 10,000 dollars a month for my time and received 2-3 highly qualified leads per month for purchase prices in the 100K to low millions. They were extremely happy with this in fact they hired me after I was at a different job for 2 years and this is where I work now.

I had another company paying $4,000 per month for half my time and getting 10 - 15 leads per month for web design leads. Price ranges $15,000 - $100,000. Again, highly qualified leads with a budget and timeframe.

If you are selling SaaS and are looking for introductory appointments or webinars with prospects that are qualified more by what type or size business they are you should expect 15 - 30 leads per month.

That introductory call lead is much easier to get and you're not disqualifying prospects on the basis of them not having an approved budget or a time frame (possibly because your solution is completely new and no one knows they need it yet.)

I can recommend a company that I have not been affiliated with for a 10 years or so: Good Leads.

Woody

Politicker

Business Development Executive

Their call to connect is .02% ? I'm reading that as for every 10,000 dials they make they're getting the person they're calling on the phone twice. If that is accurate it is very screwy. You should get the person you're calling on the phone somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 50 depending on the type of person.

I have an actual export of call stats from an IT related customer. The targets were high level IT executives SVP, VP, CIO, hard to reach guys. The customer was a major player you've heard of so that may have greased the wheels a bit making it more likely they take my call.

Numbers: 316 dials (the number of time a phone number was dialed) 20 problem dials (number doesn't work customer left org etc.) 9 conversations (I reached who I wanted to call and spoke with them)

ap_apac

Member

Seasoned Sales (PS & SaaS)

What's the domain for Good Leads , goodleads[dot]com?

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

In my experience, unless you have a gigantic TAM and a really transactional sale they are relatively useless.

wvfan

Fire Starter

National Director of Sales

The market is any company over 500 employees with a health insurance plan.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

I think that might fall into that bucket, have they worked in this vertical before?

wvfan

Fire Starter

National Director of Sales

Yeah, they said everything right before we signed up. Was just wondering if anyone had expereince using a company for this and had advise. Is it better to give them a narrow focus on certain parts of the country or certain industries to target. Or just let them do their own thing.

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

Can you define “lead generation company” that could mean about 10,000 things

wvfan

Fire Starter

National Director of Sales

Basically they are an SDR firm. They were hired to do cold emails and cold calls to set up demos.

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wvfan

Lead Generation Companies: The good, the bad, and the ugly

19 comments

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