Generating your own leads takes time you don't have as a trade business. So sooner or later the question comes up: should I outsource my lead generation? There are three ways to do this, and they differ enormously in cost, quality, and what you actually get to keep.
The Three Ways to Outsource Lead Generation
1. Buying Leads Per Piece
Platforms sell you leads for $15 to $80 each, depending on the industry. Sounds straightforward, but there's a catch: the same lead is usually sold to three to five businesses at once. So you're paying for a race to the phone. Whoever responds first and best wins, and everyone else paid for nothing.
2. Hiring an Agency
A lead generation agency or marketing agency builds campaigns for you and charges a monthly fee, often between $750 and $2,500 per month, plus ad budget. You get expertise and execution, but watch out for two things: the results (website, campaigns, data) often remain the agency's property, and the costs keep running whether things go well or not.
3. Running a Fixed System
The third route: instead of buying hours, you get a working system. The website, follow-up, assistant, and review funnel are all set up, managed for you, and run for a fixed monthly fee. All you keep are the leads.
What Does It Really Cost?
| Model | Cost | Hidden Costs | Who Owns the Result | |-------|------|---------------|----------------------| | Buying leads | $15 to $80 per lead | Shared leads, low win chance | The platform | | Agency | $750 to $2,500/month + budget | Startup months, hourly rate for extras | Often the agency | | Fixed system | $200 to $700/month | None, ads optional | The leads are yours |
When Is Outsourcing Smart?
Outsourcing pays off when three things are true at the same time:
- Your schedule is your bottleneck: every hour spent on marketing comes at the expense of paid work
- You lack the knowledge or desire to build campaigns and follow-up yourself
- There's enough margin per job to earn back the cost (with an average flooring job of $3,000 to $8,000, one extra job per month is already more than enough)
When Is It Not Smart?
Be honest with yourself in these cases:
- You can't handle extra work. More leads without capacity only leads to disappointed customers.
- Your follow-up isn't in order. Anyone who only calls after two days wastes every lead, bought or generated. Read responding within 10 minutes doubles your conversion first.
- You want no cure, no pay. Parties who promise that usually make their money through shared leads (see method 1).
Our Approach
ForthScaling deliberately follows model three: a fixed system for trade businesses, starting at $200 per month, with no setup costs and a maximum of one business per trade per region. No shared leads, no billing by the hour. Curious if your region is still available? Schedule a free demo.