We sometimes get prospects asking us for work guarantees or payment by commission per qualified lead secured.
They ask this because they have had a bad experience with lead generation agencies, charging high fees and generating low or no paying clients.
However, we don’t work on a commission basis and charge each month upfront.
We do this because we are doing a lot of work, hiring and training a team, designing campaigns, researching leads, warming inboxes, doing outreach, and following up with leads.
This alone is of value, even before the call is booked, and we value our work.
When prospects come to us asking to pay ONLY for qualified leads that turn up to the call, this usually reveals a few things about their business.
They haven’t done it before themselves and want others to solve the problem for them and guarantee the results.
This is because they don’t know their target demographic, company size, revenue, and staff headcount in-depth and cannot estimate their total addressable market.
They might have good case studies, but business secured by referrals or word of mouth is quite different from business won by cold outreach alone.
Second, they do not know who to message, what decision maker is the right person to target, or what messaging is working to secure interested prospects wanting to buy.
This is usually where a company wants a lead generation agency to help out - to come up with the magic words to say to get others to buy. But messaging is simply articulating an offer, and if the offer is not proven, no magical messaging with solve this problem.
Third, they do not know basic metrics like the number of outreach messages, to the number of calls booked. Or the number of calls booked to the number of contracts signed. Without these numbers, they are flying blind.
Again this is where a company wants a lead generation agency to provide proof and guarantees, or to work on a commission basis.
They don’t realize that their inexperience alienates the good lead-generation agencies that will value their time.
There are a lot of hyperbolic claims in the marketing spaces [We guarantee 30 qualified leads per week] because this is what companies want to hear.
It’s like saying I will guarantee your perfect body in 30 days with a miracle diet.
This leads to disappointment and general distrust of the marketing world.
Lead generation goals and metrics should be set by the company, not by the lead generator.
A company that knows its numbers can assess if there is a good ROI in paying a contractor or specialist to do the work and happily agree up front to pay for work delivered.
Of course, a company wants to know that a contractor has skin in the game or is incentivized to book calls and share the upside of generating new business.
Once numbers are understood by both company and contractor, a base plus commission service can be negotiated, or even a pure commission-only model.
However, if you are a company that has yet to learn about lead generation, you will need to focus first on experimenting and testing until you have some solid numbers or are willing to pay a contractor to do the experimenting with you until you know your market better.
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