Better late then never right?
Day two was a great day that was packed with great discussions and opinions. It started off with a number of different sessions. This year Jay had put together a number of different panels for the attendees to choose from and one included a lead management discussion that I happened to have moderated. So let start there.
Jay wanted to take the complete process into count with this panel. How should lead generation companies manage the the leads they generate? Who should the seller distribute the leads to? Should they be validated? Its my feeling that these questions are fairly simple to answer. You send the highest quality of leads to the buyers paying the most. This means validating leads, sending them in real time and distributing based on the highest price. Simple enough, right? Well, it is, but we dug deeper into the discussion by getting a little more detailed. Topics included the validating leads, passing lead source data (landing page name, time stamp, etc) and the appropriate time it takes a lead to distribute. The last conversation went longer then I wanted and because of this I learned a valuable lesson that I will be sure to apply to the next session I moderate.
I never want to cut a panelists off for a couple of reasons. First, they are on the panel for a reason and never would I want to discount their opinion. Secondly, the answer or discussion may be more valuable to the audience then I perceive it to be. The conversation that was taking more time then planned revolved around how long it should take for a lead to distribute. After a few minutes of going back and forth on whether it takes 2 seconds of 5 seconds I had to cut it off by saying it takes only seconds and we should leave it at that. The point of me bring this up is because I wish we could have gotten to more pertinent questions regarding lead management.
The room was split down the middle with lead buyers and sellers and I think looking back that both parties can benefit from learning the basics about lead management. Questions like; How many leads should each of my agents receive per day? How many lead should they have in their pipeline? When is the best time to call a lead? Should I be calling leads on the weekends? I can go on and on.
Sellers benefit from these line of questions because they are able to take it back to their buyers and coach them on the processes and hopefully mold them into long term lead buyers. Obviously, buyers benefit a great deal because they are able to take it home and apply to their operations.
I think next time I will insure that the panelist keep their answers to a max of 1 or 2 minutes. Better yet, I think I need to be on the panel and answer these questions myself. lol. In fact, maybe a presentation with a little Q&A would have accomplished more. I think what happens on a panel with competitors is that it turns into a competition of who can be the last to give an answer. They also do not want to give away the secret sauce and having a neutral third party may be the key to unlocking all the secrets. Now, I am over exaggerating and generalizing a bit here, but…nonetheless just a thought.
A few things that were interesting throughout the conference was the level of optimism that abounded everywhere. Granted many of the panels agreed that 2009 would not be a much better then 2008, but they also agreed that it wouldn’t be much worse either. Some called for companies to focus on their core capabilities and others called for diversification. Matt Coffin founder of LowerMyBills, which sold to Experian a few years back, now heading up Coffin Capital, told the crowd that the only way to scale is to be diversified. One or two verticals is not going to give a company the ability to scale, according to Coffin. I agree with Coffin, however running numerous verticals can be a problem in itself and actually slow any type of growth, if not managed properly.
One other thing to note, that possibly slipped out on the first day was a possible partnership between LendingTree and Double Positive. VP of Marketing at Tree.com, Keith Moore, let it slip that live transfers may be in the mix for LendingTree. We will wait for a press release to confirm that news.
I will continue to follow up on a number of topics that came at LeadsCon throughout the week, so keep an eye out.
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LC,
I enjoyed reading your summary of the show.
I wanted to include our CEO’s take on the event as well. http://blogs.doublepositive.com/2009/03/07/leadscon-2009-las-vegas-thoughts-reports-and-reflections/
Also thanks for running point on the poker tournament. You did an awesome job putting that together on short notice.
Thanks,
Joey
Co-Founder and EVP of Sales
PS- Press release on DoublePositive and LendingTree should be out soon!
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I would be happy to moderate the panel with you on it critic! I also think there should be a buyers workshop as many of the buyers there just do not understand best practices buying techinques similar to what you mentioned; number of leads, who gets them, what do I look for in a provider, etc.
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Not sure if this is possible in the conference format but it would be great to see more of a “case study” review of some real data on the lead management side that covers the exact data that you discuss above(How many leads should each of my agents receive per day? How many lead should they have in their pipeline? When is the best time to call a lead? Should I be calling leads on the weekends?)and more. Even if its aggregated and generic it would be better than none.
Not sure if anyone would be willing to be that transparent but as a buyer it would be great to hear what others are doing. That being said that you also need to develop your own plan that works for your business as we are all different (people, technologies, brands, etc).
Maybe the guys at Sparkroom would be willing to…maybe not. Maybe its a sponsored workshop for one of the LMS companies, maybe it will never happen. Anyway just wanted to throw it out there.
The conference has been great the last 2 years but to get me coming back year in and year out this I think there will need to be new ideas / new companies to buy from / innovation to learn about to get me there as well as a deeper look at the business. That being said I am sure Jay will deliver…
Anyway just my couple of pennies…
PS who is planning to go to Leadscon East? I am thinking about it.
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I hear ya, I tried to get that information in my question to the panel \What is working today\, their answers was vague and most didn’t address the actual question, I had to ask it twice. The only panel member who came close waas Jeff Solomon who said (paraphrase), \We know what that information is and share it with only our clients\.
Well I work with a lot of their clients and not one of them I’ve spoken to has been provided any information or really knows what is working today. Maybe I’m not working with the clients that get that information but I think it’s not being shared.
Jay? What do you think, it would be a great workshop, sponsored or not to have practical buyer experience presented….
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yep Noel I appreciated your attempt.
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BTW I also don’t have that info from Leads360 nor know anyone who does. I need to ask and see if Jeff will deliver…
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Call me and I would be happy to discuss the questions above. I thought the Leads Management panel was fine, but it was a bit off topic. I wanted to talk about the role of LMS in any vertical and how far we should build out in any one vertical. I wanted to know what my competitors thought were the innovations that would lead to improved throughput at the point of sale. I wanted to talk about lead management for non-call center based businesses. There’s so much more that we could have discussed from a buyer side perspective. 45 mins is too short a timeframe for 4 people to adequately express their ideas and vision. Nevertheless, I still think I was the most handsome on the panel.
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I’d be happy to share concrete data with anyone who wants it regarding ‘when is the best time to call’ and ‘how quickly should you call’. We have this data and are writing a white paper to this effect, but feel free to ping me and I can share directly (andrew@leadqual.com). In summary, calling leads real time results in a 20% higher contact rate, and 30% higher qualification rate. As Lead Critic has said numerous times, calling leads real-time on the weekend results in an improvement by 20% over the 30% (or 36%) versus average accross all days. Hope this helps.
Andrew Coleman
Co-founder – LeadQual
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Andrew,
Thats great! Please send it my way when it has been completed.
mike (@) leadcritic.com
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