Why is a Local Lead Generation Business is the Best Online Business to Make Residual Passive Income?
There are A LOT of options online. A lot of noise and distractions in what will work, or what’s outdated. And at times, it can be quite hard to know which business model will work.
Lead generation is one of the handful of online businesses that I believe are worth your time in researching and pursuing. Why? It offers amazing profits, low overhead, low maintenance, real local results to business owners, all the while also creating streams of residual passive income weekly/monthly for you and your family. Plus you can do it from home (or anywhere really), from your laptop, & wifi connection.
This is what I’ve been doing for almost six years. I keep growing each day from learning from other students in the program who are crushing it. And continuously building more websites to help more local businesses put food on their table to feed their families and not stress about where their next customer is coming from. I want you to know this is one of the best business models you can find. In the next few paragraphs, you’ll learn more about it in detail, and potentially how to get started if it’s a good fit for you.
Here are some online business models millions of people have tried, myself included.
—MLM or Multi Level Marketing companies
—Dropshipping
—Affiliate marketing
—Amazon FBA
—General blogging
—Selling on Etsy
That’s just to name a handful of online businesses most people try and unfortunately fail at.
While many of the ones I mentioned above can make decent income (and there are those who do amazing at them) from my professional experience, I don’t believe they are the best online business models. I think most people fail at these because these businesses don’t really teach you SKILLSETS.
Learning a set of skills is important. Why? Once you know something, you can’t unlearn it. That knowledge is with you forever.
Yeah, you might learn a thing or two from those business models. But one thing most people are forgetting that entrepreneurship is more than just buying and flipping. It’s more than just making money. Entrepreneurship is becoming a whole new person that LEARNS how to be a problem solver, and provides that value to the market place.
With that list of online business models I mentioned above, it’s almost impossible to make six figures a year (over $100,000 USD). But with lead generation, all you need is 10 clients paying you $1,000 a month, which becomes easy as you learn the skillsets needed to bring real customers to local businesses. Local lead generation is the most cost-effective, profitable, and the least time-consuming online business model.
I’ve been living out of this business since April of 2016, and my digital empire continues to keep growing by the day. I want to show you how you can work the local lead gen business model, fulfill your dreams, kill your 9-5 job if that’s your goal, and live your life by design.
What is Local Lead Generation?
Imagine any local business.
The niche, industry, or target market doesn’t need to be too specific. Just come up with an idea. Like pool cleaning, roofing, landscaping, etc.
The first that came to my mind is a tree service business and how these businesses need clients daily to survive. They make good profits and can potentially have recurring revenue with their clients.
After all, businesses will ONLY grow if they are able to have a continuous influx of customers while also retaining current clients.
Imagine sending 30-50 new leads/calls a month to a local tree company.
(And just in case I haven’t cleared this up: a lead = a potential customer).
Do you think that tree company would grow their revenue and profits from those 30-50 calls? You better believe it.
Imagine if you owned a business. And I sent you 30+ new calls a month from potential customers looking for your service. Wouldn’t you make more money? Granted, as long as you were a good service provider of course, you’d make money off my calls.
So building a local lead generation business plays a huge role in getting (for example) a tree service business more clients. And using these skillsets we teach in the lead gen program, it helps ANY other local company create an influx of potential new customers that can turn to long term clients.
Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to generate leads for local business owners. And making money from those set of skills you learned from us.
Local lead generation is all about connecting local companies to local customers looking for services. Example: someone in Jonesboro Arkansas is searching for a drywall contractor.
You built a drywall website and it’s ranking on the top of page 1.
They click your site. They call the number.
That call is automatically forwarded to a local drywall contractor you already connected to that wanted to grow his business.
He gets the call. He quotes the individual. The new client agrees to the terms. And now the contractor is happy.
Why? Because you just put money in his pocket.
But here’s the deal: You get paid whether he closes the deal or not because your job is to send him/her the leads or calls. YOUR JOB IS NOT TO CLOSE THEIR DEAL. That is the contractor’s job.
Obviously, if they can’t close deals, you don’t wanna work with them anyways. But with the variety of skills you learn from the local lead gen program, you can coach your clients in how to close deals and solve problems with potential customers reaching out to them through your websites.
That’s why we focus on going hyper local. Taking it to the local aspect narrows the places where you need to target leads and bring awareness to that niche in that city.
This is the final factor to keep in mind: local or not, lead generation is all about online efforts, which involves using search engines like Google. And we also utilize other platforms such as Google Maps, social media channels, directories, etc.
The ultimate goal is to allow business owners to thrive by sending them leads that they then can convert them into customers for the longterm. But there may be some who don’t know what is a leads. A lead is when someone calls or emails your website needing the service your website offers, and you forward that contact information/live call (aka the lead) to a company/business that offers that specific service.
To bring the process together, lead generation is when you generate the customers from your website, you connect them to a local company who offers that service, and you make a little sliver of the revenue from the company.
Think of it like a running your own Uber-style laptop business. Uber is the largest taxi company in the world. Yet they own no taxis. They connect the driver and the passenger through an app. And Uber gets a piece of the fee since by connecting the one who is offering a ride, and the customer needing a ride.
You are NOT the service provider. You are the middleman making sure both parties connect. And the lead generator gets paid for making it happen.
The biggest difference between local lead generation and other online business models is that you own the website (aka digital real estate). It’s your asset. You own the domain, the website, the call tracking number. You are in full control. Compared to, let’s say affiliate marketing, where you don’t control the offer or how much you can make. Or Amazon FBA, where at any moment they can kick you off their platform for a false accusation from a customer that could possibly be a competitor wanting to take you out.
Being in full control over your passive income is very important. And since you own all the assets, you have all the power. So if Timmy the tree guy is a bad business owner and fails to pay on month #5, you can simply stop sending him calls. And in a few clicks, you can forward the calls to his competitor who may pay you even more. That’s how you can create a stream of passive income, without having to start all over if a former business owner skips out on paying you (and that’s worst case scenario).
What’s the Difference Between Organic Local Lead Generation and Paid Lead Generation?
So far, they sound very similar as it is all about marketing and getting more customers to the business owner. Still, the main difference lies in how a marketing professional get companies in front of their potential clientele.
In general, most marketers use paid platforms to get fast results. Platforms such as social media, search engine ad space like Google Ads, or other affiliate websites to build brand awareness like an Angie’s List. The paid ads can help potential customers know more about the company, which can starting bringing in new prospects. However, the main downside is that this can get pretty expensive very fast if you don’t have this dialed in.
For example, lets’ say you’re a tree company. And a standard tree trimming service is $500. And your profit from that is $250 after labor and material cost. If you are using a paid platform (let’s say Google Ads), and your average paid lead is $50. And it takes 5 leads to land a new client, do the math. You’re spending $250 to make $250. Which means you made nothing, you broke even. That is not a sustainable lead generation model for your company in the long run. Because we all know not all jobs are the same, and some leads are better quality than others. There are LOTS of variables that come into play.
Unless a marketer can PROVE they can generate a certain number of leads within a certain budget (example: 30 tree trimming leads for $1,200), then you will be bleeding money and your business won’t last long. You’ll need to find another way to generate leads for your business.
Meanwhile, organic lead generation is what I call magnetic marketing or buyer-intent marketing. Meaning if you are positioned on page 1 for specific keywords (like “tree trimmers augusta ga”), and someone is searching for tree trimming companies in Augusta Georgia, you potentially will land them as a client if they click on your website. Remember, page 1 rankings has 10 positions. So the higher you are on the page, the better of a chance that website visitor will come click on your page and call your tracking number.
When someone is looking to buy something or spend money on a service (like AC repair, tree trimming, pluming, roofing, etc), the conversion rate is at least 5x more likely than a cold lead from paid ads. Why? Because they WANT/NEED to spend money versus an ad that could be totally unrelated to what they’re needing at the moment. It’s like billboards by the side of the highway. Most are irrelevant, a few might make sense, and that’s about it.
To break it down a little further in why paid advertising has such a lower conversion rate, most people know the difference between ads on Google versus a localized website. Most of the time, people just skip the ads and go straight for the organic rankings. I’m not saying that ads don’t work. They do. But they work FAR LESS effective than organic lead generation.
If you’re doing ads, placing yourself on the ‘Ad’ section of search results isn’t the same as being part of the top results on Map Listing or Search Results organically. Most customers will click on those pages and Map Listing because they are more reliable and localized to their searches. Ironically, consumers are not as brand loyal to local services as they are to other things they buy. Example: if you’re looking for a tree trimmer, you’re looking for someone who’s local. But if you’re wanting a new pair of shoes, you’re thinking of a brand like Nike or Adidas.
The customers you want to aim for are those clicking on the organic results since they are truly interested in the service. Therefore, you need to get your website ranking to rake in those hot leads. Avoid the ad section, and instead, work on learning the skillset of Local SEO (search engine optimization) to make the highest return on investment.
What is Local SEO & Why is it Important?
Keeping it simple, search engine optimization (or SEO) is the process and skillset one must learn to help a website’s visibility on the search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc) climb the page ranks. The goal is always to get specific keywords to increase in rank, and get on the first page for the best results. The goal is to ensure customers can find, for example, your plumbing company located in Miami Florida whenever they go and type-specific keywords.
“Plumbing [company] Miami FL” or “professional plumbers miami fl,” and so forth. You are on the organic search results when you rank on the first page after the ad section (paid advertisement) and Map Listing (Google Maps). Being at the top of this section tells customers how reliable you are.
Also, they almost never go to the second page to look for services. And while talking about map listings, there are strategies to get your lead generation website in what is called the “Map Pack” or the “3 Pack.” The Google Maps section is another great source of leads for your business as well. And it utilizes learning local SEO to get the job done, and doing it right.
Now, the secret is that to use SEO effectively, you need to build your website (i.e. digital assets) correctly from the beginning. This website is the one that will show up first when you optimize it for the right keywords to get in front of right prospects looking to spend money on your products or services.
Why Should I Choose Local Lead Generation as a Business Model?
Because customers shop & research online before they buy, especially when it comes to local based services.
It doesn’t matter if a company or business spend thousands of dollars on traditional marketing like radio, magazine, billboards, etc. If they aren’t online, they are losing out on tens of thousands of dollars or more depending on what they offer and what market they are in. When customers or new clients are looking for services and products, they always go online to search.
And they don’t search just anywhere. They go to the main search engines. Google is the king of the internet jungle. Following Google are other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. When a consumer types “landscape lighting miami” (for example), there will be a page that populates ads, map listings, and 10 results. The consumer will then browse around page 1 and see what website stands out most to them. Then they’ll click, scroll, and call so someone can come give them a quote on some landscape lighting.
Now the question is: how can you position your business/company to be the answer to that consumer’s quest on finding a landscape lighting installer?
The answer is simple. You need to rank on those search engines for those specific keywords. And the better you get at these skills you learn through the local lead generation program, you can make sure you are people’s first option as you climb the ranks. I hope you are realizing how important it is to be on the search engines, understand how these search engines algorithms work, and what you can do to start ranking on the first page.
Do Business Owners Hire Lead Generation Companies?
The owners that want to grow their businesses and revenue, the answer is yes. Some don’t, and usually they start to fail when the “word of mouth” marketing doesn’t cut it anymore.
Businesses need customers. Yet many times they can’t spend a ton of time with their online marketing because they’re running their business. It’s a catch 22. They need clients, most have no idea of how to get them, and that’s why they hire professionals like me (and potentially you) to bring them business. This is why local lead gen is one of the smartest online business models. And it’s super scalable, because there are always new businesses.
You can implement the lead gen process for any company in any niche in any location. Which means you aren’t limited to working just in your local area. You can narrow your websites to specific markets, cities, and niches.
The process of how to generate leads is a great skillset to learn. Getting companies more clients through your website, and you making passive income from that is a feeling of freedom. Once you’ve built your asset and have it ranked in its local market for the specific money keywords, there’s not much maintenance that comes after that.
Is the Easiest Way to Make Money Online with Local Lead Generation?
I’m obviously biased, and will tell you yes. But for the skeptics reading, let’s have a closer look at how this all works.
So you know so far local businesses need more customers. And you can pass to these local businesses calls & leads from your website.
But where do you start to make this possible?
How do you know if a business needs leads?
Is it that simple to build your websites, aka digital assets?
Let’s take a step at a time, and thoroughly go through this one by one.
First, you’ll do due diligence and research before you build your digital assets (websites). You want to do your market research and find phone-driven businesses in a specific city or area .
Second, once you’ve solidified a niche and local market to go after, you’ll start building your website. You don’t need to use heavy platforms like WordPress or other HTML builders. There are options that are as easy as click and drag elements as if you were building a presentation. We use a great web builder called Snapps. There’s hundreds of templates to choose, so making a website is an easy process nowadays.
Third, when the website is finished, you’ll then start following our proven success strategies in ranking the site with SEO tactics. SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” As a program, we’ve been around for almost 8 years. So we know what works, what to stay away from, and what to focus on to make your website successful. Trust the process, that’s one of our main mottos.
Fourth, when your site is built and ranked, you can start prospecting local businesses and see who wants more customers. determine whether they do or don’t need leads. Give them a trial for a few days or so, and give them the leads for free. They get to see you’re the real deal and not trying to rip them off. After a short trial period, work out a deal to rent the website to them. Or in other words, forwarding them the calls and leads that come in.
You just repeat the process and rent all those assets out! Once you’ve built and ranked an asset, there’s no need to go back to it. It will generate leads continuously, and they will go to the business owner while you get paid per lead or a flat fee on a weekly or monthly basis (passive income babyyyyyy).
Will Renting Out Websites (Digital Assets) Allow Me to Build a Real Online Business?
If you want to work from home, be location independent, own your own time, use a laptop, and do something that actually helps businesses, then the answer is “yes.”
Remember, this business model is a win win situation for all parties involved. The business owner is growing in exposure, branding, and revenue. And you’re making money by delivering him/her leads.
Of course, every business model has it’s pros and cons. And lead generation is no exception. But the pros obliterate the cons in comparison with other online business models. Consider that you can generate passive income by creating localize niche-specific websites that generate leads for local businesses. It’s pretty much hands off once you’re ranking well.
Remember, this is for anyone who wants to:
- • Make passive income.
- • Work from anywhere.
- • Avoid regular overhead expenses (equipment, renting a space, hiring people, etc).
- • Work with a scalable and simple business model.
Local lead gen is definitely the way to go. As someone who has tried traditional businesses and lots of online businesses, I know a thing or two about what’s practical for people who are just getting started with entrepreneurship. Or for the business owner that wants to learn these skills to generate more clients for their own business.
Sounds Awesome! But How Do I Get Started?
One of the beauties of local lead generation is that anyone can do it if you remain committed, disciplined, consistent, and take action. Especially if you follow our detailed training, group coaching, and support.
There’s a lot to learn, and experience is key to making this work. That’s why the group and coaching is so important. So that you don’t repeat the same mistakes that others have made. The more time you invest in it, the faster you will grow through your learning curve, and achieve those dreams you have in why you got started with this business to begin with.
With our group coming up to being 8 years old, 7,000+ students worldwide, regularly updated training, round-the-clock support, SEO and lead gen experts that are willing to answer your questions and share tips, the only way to fail is by quitting or never getting started. Click here to watch the most recent lead gen webinar that I’ve put together for you.
Here’s some more information below if you need to keep on studying…
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.