Wow, it is great to get away and disconnect.
Last Thursday I took my family, my wife, 5 year old little girl and 22 month old son, and headed up to San Fransisco for a friends wedding. Both kids were in the wedding and after coaxing the 22 month old down the isle with a piece of gum you start realize the basics and fundamentals of a successful life. I will expand a little more on that later. Not only does taking a vacation allow you to refocus back on your life motivations , re-energize your drive, remind you what is important in life, but it also allows you to revisit past topics or maybe just focus on them a little more. I think my last article based on the 9 month old MIT study was a fitting article to let simmer for a few days.
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We have sporadicly discussed lead management benchmarks here for the past few weeks and have an ongoing survey running that continues to be very tight race. I want to bring it up again and source an 8 month old study performed by MIT. The study has been out for sometime, as I just mentioned, and I have been putting off discussing it for a while now. Not because I think it is unimportant, because it is very important for people to read. I simply just had more time sensitive topics that arose and continued to put it off.
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According to MarketingSherpa’s Business Marketing Survey, lead nurturing is an area that is a point of pain for many businesses. They asked 980 marketers in a variety of industries if they have a process for lead nurturing. Surprisingly, only 56% have a solid plan in place.
56% have some defined lead nurturing process in place, but only 36% of them are satisfied with that process. I believe that most lead nurturing programs out there are not really as successful as they could be in optimizing communications during the sales cycle.
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When I was a kid, I used to read books on cool things such as the Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch and the Yeti. Those things interested me because I thought it was really fascinating to think something like that could exist. But now that I am a more logical and practical thinking adult and I know that it is not possible for something like this to exist. It is time that we as a market, come to grips that Exclusive Leads, just like the Sasquatch, do not exist.
I bring this up because I still have conversations occasionally with lead buyers inquiring about exclusive leads. My recommendation is typically this, “If anyone tries to sell you exclusive leads, then also inquire if they have a nearby bridge that they could also sell you, or maybe some beach front property in Nebraska.” I think I have made my point…
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I am fairly surprised by the voting on right. It is close to a 50/50 split on if people would be willing to pay for an annual benchmark report. I suspected that there would, of course, be people who would not be interested in paying for such a report, but I did not expect to be split down the middle. Granted the sample size in not significant for this poll, however you can make a few assumptions or at least I would like too.
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I had a feeling today that something was up when I noticed a search result that lead to my blog “IndyMac Layoffs July 2008″. It is always interesting to see how people get to my blog and sometimes very insightful. I made that same search and found nothing, but had a hunch something was up. Then I came across BlownMortgage post and links to the IndyMac blog with the announcement.
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I don’t know about you but I have been fixated on the fact that their are a number of different lead exchanges in the market. First, I guess the proper terminology would be marketplaces, because there is not real exchange of leads. Either way I have always questioned the viability of the competitive landscape for lead marketplaces. Is there room for more then two?
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The Los Angeles based lead management software company Leads360 decided to part ways with industry thought leader Noel Collins. Noel, who prior to joining the Leads360 team, was a very savvy lead buyer and marketing manger that oversaw the growth of a strong Orange County California mortgage shop. Leads360 brought Noel on to implement best practices in the Lead Manager platform and also to assist the companies many users.
Known for his passion for Leads360’s product offerings and the lead industry as a whole, Arizona based Noel Collins often participated on the LeadCritic website as an author and hopefully will continue to bring insight to the LeadCritic readers in the future. There is no doubt that his experience and passion will not leave him without a home for long. Leads360 has a lost a great industry advocate and will no less be some other companies extraordinary find.
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The forward thinking Bill Rice took another bite out of the web 2.0 apple and launches a Kaleidico YouTube Channel.
Why is this notable? Because I enjoy seeing companies take new avenues to generate customers and Kaleidico is always on the forefront of implementing new social marketing concepts. Bill Rice started blogging about lead buying before I even new what a blog was. He also was the first I knew of that efficiently used twitter for personal use and also to manage leads.
Whether or not every strategy will work to generate a business lead it will continue to educate an industry that is desperate need for a teacher.
The YouTube channel will be interesting to watch evolve. Currently there are 6 short, 2 minutes or less videos discussing different sales strategies along with 2 power point presentations.
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You have got to love Arizona. Arizona has always been a notoriously tough state to obtain Bankers/Brokers license and has occasionally even heavy-handed some lead providers over the years. Now Arizona appears to be on the verge of passing a new Loan Officer licensing bill. By passing a bill that would require loan officers and mortgage originators to pass a test, pay a fee and notify the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions regarding their employment, Arizona is leading the charge to regulate shaky lending practices.
LEADCRITIC
