Companies that know how to handle leads and perform sales will be the first to admit: lead generation is an important form of marketing. The benefit of lead generation through a service is the quantifiable cost to acquire a new client. Companies that invest in this service largely reduce the amount of time and resources typically invested in lead generation.

The cost-per-lead structure far outweighs traditional advertising because the contractor knows what to expect in terms of corresponding cost. In addition, a good lead company will specialize in marketing and generating leads, thus affording the contractor the time to do what they do best – estimating and project managing.

The important thing for the contractor is to choose a lead company that they can form a relationship with. In this dynamic, they can spend time educating the company about their specific needs. A problem arises when the lead company and the contractor have different definitions of a "qualified lead." If there is a disparity in this definition, the contractor and lead generation company will always be at odds.

Contractors need to understand that the lead company can only control certain factors: where the lead comes from, the scope of the project, how the lead is qualified, and how many contractors it is distributed to. Beyond that, there are no "golden leads" or leads of only "high end" customers that many lead generation companies profess. An honest lead generation company will be the first to tell you this, and an honest lead generation company should be your only consideration.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Contractor Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.