Every day I am asked the same question by my MSP clients: “Where can I buy a list of qualified leads?” I always offer the same response – You can’t. It doesn’t exist. Nowhere can you enter your credit card number into a webpage and get a list of people just waiting for you to call them. Nonetheless, I still meet MSPs who brag that they get lists at the low, low price of $0.50 a lead.
Let’s break out that fifty cent number. What are you buying? At $.50 or less a lead, I can tell you that you’re not actually buying much at all. Let’s break it down a little. You pay $100.00 for 200 leads. Knowing that you have a 5% close rate, you believe that you can confidently close 10 customers from that list, because they’re “qualified.”
Looking more closely at the list, you discover that you have 20% non-decision makers, 15% bounce, and another 5% are bad data/closed companies. What you’re left with is 60% or 120 names which are now effectively $0.83 each. It gets worse. What most list buyers forget is that you’re not the first person to buy this list. So, that means some of the recipients have email filters already on high alert. That means a higher risk of blacklist, leaving you with only a 5% open rate on the remaining 120 names. That’s only 6 people opening your email, and since none of them asked for info – you have a very long wait before it’s time to talk sales, since most sales occur within 8-12 contacts. So, you’re marketing every week, with a 5% close rate, you have a chance you COULD sell 0.3 customers within say, 8-12 weeks.
That is less than 1/3 of a customer for $100 worth of “leads”
Now, don’t get me wrong – you CAN opt into a lead service where you are in a list of vendors who pay handsomely for people requesting information live, but those leads are very pricey. The last company we researched for this was $75 for ONE LEAD.
I’m not telling you to stop buying leads, but I am telling you that the cheaper they are, the less likely you’ll close business from them. Save your money for something with a higher ROI.
There is NO such thing as a list of “qualified” leads. It’s a mythical concept that’s built on the desperation of the small business owner. Don’t fall prey to it.
You turn cold leads into qualified leads through time, hard work, and dedication to success.
In the coming weeks, I’ll show you how.
