Back from the dead, Owen Raun of RMC Vanguard posted his first podcast in 3 months. According to the site he will be teaming up with Bill Rice to interview “Leaders in the Lead Generation Industry”. The first podcast in the series was an interview with LeadPoint CEO, Marc Diana and was quite interesting.The first few minutes involved getting to know Marc’s career history and once that was over with they actually got into some very good conversations about the health of the industry, competing exchanges, the death of Root Exchange, what it takes to be successful in this market and when we would begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I suggest taking the 15 or 20 minutes to listen, but here are few points I pulled from it:

• LeadPoint has struggled like every other company in the industry, however has been able benefit from their diversity into the credit repair and settlement verticals. They have also benefited from off line lead generation tactics that generate voice leads.
• “Mortgage shops are opening just as fast as they are closing”. This isn’t the first time I have heard this. The first time I heard I know for certain the person was feeding me a bunch of bullshit. This time…. I still think so, haha.
• To be successful companies need to have the right tools and people, “taking long trips to starbucks or the water cooler need to stop”. Good point!
• Reply.com may suffer because of its conflict of interest by being a lead generator and competing against their partners on their own exchange.
• Diana thinks we have hit bottom for the most part, however we may see at least 2 more quarters of bumps and bruises. He thinks late 2009 we will begin to see a come back.

Take a listen to the complete interview here

Good job Owen and Bill on the interview.

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