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Need Advice with Local Lead Gen Billing Please!

by soulpower
5 replies
Hey guys,
I have a local client that is a pest control company. I've been billing them weekly for all calls minus solicitors.

The problem is that after I send them the weekly bill, they have to get back with their own stats. This is because they call back numbers that maybe didn't get all the way through to an operator and still may have turned into a lead (I have no way to see this from my end).

So it becomes a big headache every week to wait on them and then for them to get around sending payment. Sometimes I'm waiting up to 2 weeks.

I'm considering the following options:

- Monthly flat rate for all calls (paypal subscription)
- Pay per call based on time duration (invoiced)
- Deduct from a prepaid balance

The thing that makes a monthly flat rate tricky is that pest control is a bit seasonal. There are more bug jobs in the summer than winter. So a year-round flat rate might be hard to swallow for them. It also puts a cap on how much I can make with them If i wanted to keep pushing the SEO harder, which is very possible to do.

Basically, I'd like to remove the problem of having to follow up with them to get payment and make things as automatic as possible without having to hire a person to scrub leads every week.

Any advice on what would work for this client and any others going forward? This was something I sort of fell into, so wasn't thinking long term with my billing structure when I got started.

Any local lead experts care to chime in? Thanks in advance!
#advice #billing #gen #lead #lead generation #local #pay per call
  • Profile picture of the author bananapeel
    How are they calling back numbers? Aren't the calls routed through a number you control from a service such as callfire that records all calls?
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    Why is this a problem? Are you not charging them enough?

    I know non-involvement is great, but sometimes involvement which is factored in the invoice is the way to go.

    Maybe you should just raise your fees to cover the way they pay you.

    For flat fee, you could go have seasonal flat fees: $800/month April-September, $435/month October and March, 185/month the rest of the year.


    Originally Posted by soulpower View Post

    Hey guys,
    I have a local client that is a pest control company. I've been billing them weekly for all calls minus solicitors.

    The problem is that after I send them the weekly bill, they have to get back with their own stats. This is because they call back numbers that maybe didn't get all the way through to an operator and still may have turned into a lead (I have no way to see this from my end).

    So it becomes a big headache every week to wait on them and then for them to get around sending payment. Sometimes I'm waiting up to 2 weeks.

    I'm considering the following options:

    - Monthly flat rate for all calls (paypal subscription)
    - Pay per call based on time duration (invoiced)
    - Deduct from a prepaid balance

    The thing that makes a monthly flat rate tricky is that pest control is a bit seasonal. There are more bug jobs in the summer than winter. So a year-round flat rate might be hard to swallow for them. It also puts a cap on how much I can make with them If i wanted to keep pushing the SEO harder, which is very possible to do.

    Basically, I'd like to remove the problem of having to follow up with them to get payment and make things as automatic as possible without having to hire a person to scrub leads every week.

    Any advice on what would work for this client and any others going forward? This was something I sort of fell into, so wasn't thinking long term with my billing structure when I got started.

    Any local lead experts care to chime in? Thanks in advance!
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    • Profile picture of the author soulpower
      Originally Posted by bananapeel View Post

      How are they calling back numbers? Aren't the calls routed through a number you control from a service such as callfire that records all calls?
      Yes, I'm using callfire. But the client has their own call tracking system...so any calls that are typically hung up before it hits an operator they call back from their own system. It would be too much red tape to try to get them to call back through my own number.

      Originally Posted by DABK View Post

      Why is this a problem? Are you not charging them enough?

      I know non-involvement is great, but sometimes involvement which is factored in the invoice is the way to go.

      Maybe you should just raise your fees to cover the way they pay you.

      For flat fee, you could go have seasonal flat fees: $800/month April-September, $435/month October and March, 185/month the rest of the year.
      It's not the involvement so much as having to chase late invoices, which is not a good way to spend my time.

      I've thought about the seasonal flat rate as well, so good point with that. I'm thinking pre-pay is the way to go now that I've reviewed all the billing models from other leadgen people. The only platform that I've seen that supports pre-pay billing is Kallzu, which in my opinion is buggy and underdeveloped.

      If anyone has any good call tracking/billing platform recommendations, I'm all ears!

      So far, I've looked at CallRail and Analytic Call Tracking...but neither have a pre-pay feature.

      Thanks guys
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  • Profile picture of the author CageyVet
    I am going to saw "wow"....

    You have a client that has their own call tracking system in place, where they will call back numbers that have disconnected before they reach an operator....AND if that call came from your system, then will pay you for the lead...

    You are complaining that this process takes too long and you find it a headache to wait for them to do this process before they pay you?

    Well I would say that you are extremely lucky, since you are getting paid for leads that most lead gen companies would not see any money for at all.

    If they are willing to do this for you, why not just charge them weekly for the leads that you track through your system and have them settle with "their callback tracked leads" on a monthly basis? So you get paid for the x amount of calls you send them a week, then at the end of the month they settle up for the leads that they tracked and called back through their own system.

    Or you could do a hybrid model. Flat monthly fee of X amount, which has a threshold of Y amount of leads (this would be the average for a week in the low season), then anything above that Y number is charged at Z per lead. This is so that you will continually get X amount per month steadily and in the high season, you will generate the extra revenue in a separate invoice for per lead charges.
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    • Profile picture of the author soulpower
      Originally Posted by CageyVet View Post

      If they are willing to do this for you, why not just charge them weekly for the leads that you track through your system and have them settle with "their callback tracked leads" on a monthly basis? So you get paid for the x amount of calls you send them a week, then at the end of the month they settle up for the leads that they tracked and called back through their own system.
      Great idea, thanks man
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