Get highly qualified leads for less than $5 each

From the desk of Toby Clem

I often say I built my local service business on cups of coffee. I get odd looks when I say that.

Here. Let me explain.

If you want to get highly qualified leads for your local service company, you shouldn't rely on lead generation companies or referral partners [plumbers] that cost you a small fortune for each lead if you want to achieve high profits with plenty of sustainable volume.

Lead generation companies diminish your SEO efforts and drive up the value of your PPC. You are fighting a losing battle if you don't hire your own SEO and/or PPC company. More importantly you are missing a tremendous opportunity to get extremely qualified leads for the cost of a cup of coffee or 2. These leads will often be higher paying, and higher profit jobs than opportunities that come from lean generation companies. You will spend hundreds, if not thousands on each lead using those methods. Your profits will always be a challenge, and you will end up spending a lot of time [on the phone or in person] trying to win "the bottom of the barrel" work.

You will constantly be frustrated and get burnt out if you aren't doing the work you enjoy.

• Receivables will go up

• Employees will get frustrated

• Company Culture will suffer

• Profits will be perpetually low

Half of my monthly income went towards lead gen companies. I mistook busy for growth

When I first got started, I was still getting to know myself, and what it meant to be a business owner. I valued volume over profits. I worked A LOT. I worked a lot doing work that I didn't enjoy, my employees did not enjoy and as a result I was constantly fighting employee turnover. We worked late all the time, and in some cases we did after hours work for commercial clients.

I was not present with my young family, and my marriage suffered. In turn I started to burn out, and my employees began to show signs of the same.

My profits were not what they could have been. Lead generation companies somehow find work that is just perpetually low quality. The clients that come from those kinds of services generally do not value quality, or if they do, they expect it to be done under a false urgency, and for very low cost. The only way to survive low quality, low margin work is to do a lot of volume.

All of this led me to where I am today. My mission in life is to eliminate these obstacles for other business owners. I am driven to help everyone that will listen have a better family life, company culture, and to use their business to have a greater impact on the community that they serve.

Build your business with high quality leads on cups of coffee [or the beverage of your choice]!

If I could start all over again [which I don't really care to do... but if I could], I would start sooner building my business on cups of coffee. Starbucks, Panera Bread and Chic-Fil-A owe me a few. 😆

Meet with other business owners in your area. Commit to meeting once or twice a week with someone new. Have a cup of coffee, a beer (after-hours), or lunch and get to know them. I mean... REALLY get to KNOW them. Learn about their business. Their family. Ultimately, you want to know their STORY.

Now, its important to note that this is most effective when it comes from a very genuine place. You've got to care about the people. You've got to care about the peoples business. You've got to care about the peoples families. If you aren't focused on a greater impact on your community you will struggle with this method.

If this is all about the money for you, go dump more money into lead gen companies and digital marketing. You'll be spotted a mile away if you are fake through this process.

Relationships > Transactions

After I discovered this process and began to implement it into my business, I worked half as much and made the same amount of money. That meant that I had a LOT of room to grow and build. My conversion rate went from 30-40% to about 80% consistently. My employees and I ENJOYED working again because the clients that we worked with appreciated us, valued us, and CHOSE us to be the service provider.

The client satisfaction rate went through the roof. If I'm being honest, our quality dropped a little. The clients weren't as picky. We gave 6 star effort, 4 star quality, and always got 5 star reviews. We were able to do this because of the relationships that my team and I had built.

The beauty of this model, is that by the time we got the phone call, our referral partners had already sold us to our prospects, it was simply a matter of working out the dollar exchange for service (price) and schedule.

By doing this, my team and I

• Didn't have to do any selling

• Quality of lead was astronomically higher

• Raving reviews

• Eliminated lead gen companies from my business completely

I've dedicated my life to helping business owners get the freedom they desire. I've found a few hacks for business that worked really well for me. This is one of them. When I adopted this methodology, I was able to spend more time with my family, enjoy the work that my team and I did, impact my team members, and most importantly impact the community that I lived in and served.