A Look Inside This Little-Known $3-Billion Industry管窺鮮為人知的30億美元產(chǎn)業(yè)

希里什·賈約 譯/王一宇

How Ben Hirvi， an Australian-born lead1 seller， built a business through pay-per-call lead generation？ 在澳大利亞出生的本·希爾維是一名潛在顧客提供者，他如何通過來電付費式潛在顧客生成建立了自己的事業(yè)？

If you ask your neighbor whether they’ve ever paid money to a lead generation business， you’ll be met with a blank look. So how exactly does a hidden industry reportedly worth $3 billion a year—and growing at break-neck speed—earn its money？

To answer that， let’s consider the case of a fictional character， Kelly， who lives in Pearland Texas， a pleasant residential area outside Houston. When Kelly needs to have the trees trimmed along her front fence， she does what most homeowners do： she turns to Google. She’ll search for something like “tree services near me” or “tree trimming Pearland TX”， and she’ll call one or two of the businesses listed in the search results. One of the websites she lands on and calls is owned by Ben Hirvi， an Australian-born lead-seller， living in Asia.

However， Hirvi does not own a tree service business in Houston， and says he’s never touched a chainsaw in his life： “Absolutely not. I could probably tell you which end to hold， but that’s about it！” Instead， he does a brisk trade selling phone calls—like Kelly’s—to business owners who need customers.

In this instance， Kelly’s phone call would have been routed directly to a tree service business operating in the Pearland area， with whom Hirvi had established an agreement to sell phone calls.

Hirvi says business is booming. “I built my first site back in 2013—a pest control site in Australia—and since then， each year has been bigger than the last. In my first year， if I had 20 or 30 calls a day， that would have been big news. Now， I’m disappointed if I don’t crack 1，000 calls a day.”

When a call comes in from one of his hundreds of sites， Hirvi’s phone system routes it to his highest paying client. “Our software calculates a bunch of things within the first ring， including which client has open availability on their calendars—so that the caller is more likely to book—but also and most importantly， which client has offered to pay me the most for those calls！”

Hirvi is tight-lipped on exactly how much he earns from each call， and says it’s impossible to give an answer. “First， not all calls are billable， some are un-answered， some are marketing calls， some are previous customers， and so on. As for the billable calls， each industry is different. If you consider tree services， that customer is probably not going to be a repeat customer， so the scope for me to charge my client is firmly under $100 per call， maybe even under $50. But if you take something like accounting or bookkeeping， you can imagine that the lifetime value of a caller is very high—they might spend thousands of dollars a year for many years， which opens the door to me charging my clients a solid 4-figure fee for each person I send to them”.

While Hirvi has taken the path of selling his calls directly to clients， that’s not the only option for would-be lead sellers.

Several pay-per-call advertising networks exist， promising to pay lead-sellers a fixed fee for every qualifying call. These networks， explains Hirvi， do the thankless work of finding and managing buyers for the calls， though not without charging a hefty premium. “Often， a new lead seller discovers that the client-side of the business is the most difficult and time-consuming—and they’re absolutely right—so they choose to take a 50–70 per cent haircut2 on revenue and send all their calls to a network， which then handles the client-side and gives them a single payment each month”， says Hirvi.

Even with hundreds of businesses and lead sellers competing for the top position on Google， the pay-off can be handsome， says Hirvi. “If you look at something like ‘bed bug exterminator NYC’， there are about 600 to 800 searches per month， and more in winter”.

“Those guys are going to end up paying a couple of thousand dollars each to fix their bed bug problem， so with just one website， you’re in front of over a million dollars per month of customer spending; so even if you have your fees on the very low end and you’re charging your clients 10 per cent of what they earn， you have a very lucrative website.”

The legalities of operating websites like his are complex and vary by state and country， but Hirvi says that in addition to having a lawyer review all sites before they receive a single call， there is one simple principle that has kept him out of trouble. “The first rule of lead selling is that you don’t sell calls to dodgy businesses. If customers have a good experience， you’ll never have a problem.”

After eight years of running his own portfolio， Hirvi has begun offering income-producing lead generation sites as a ‘done for you service’ through his agency Lead Commanders.

“It’s a good deal for me and it’s attractive for my clients， for somewhere around $30，000–40，000， they end up with an income-producing site， sometimes paying them well into 5-figures a month，” says Hirvi， adding “and it’s a good alternative revenue stream for me because we charge a percentage of revenue to manage the sites long term.”

While it’s clear that business owners can benefit by buying calls from lead sellers， it’s not clear what impact the increase in online competition will have on those businesses who choose not to buy from lead sellers， and instead， to drive their own calls. Instead of competing with only the other service providers in their local area， small businesses are now increasingly competing with potentially unlimited numbers of lead sellers， making the task of driving customers to their business more competitive than it might otherwise have been.

若你問鄰居是否在潛在顧客生成產(chǎn)業(yè)上花過錢，他可能一臉茫然地看著你。這個據(jù)稱年凈值30億美元并在飛速發(fā)展的隱秘產(chǎn)業(yè)，到底如何盈利？

為回答這一問題，我們設定一個虛構人物：凱莉，生活在得克薩斯州休斯敦市外舒適的居住區(qū)皮爾蘭。當凱莉需要找人修剪門前圍欄邊的樹時，同大多數(shù)房主一樣，她點開谷歌，搜索“我附近的樹枝修剪服務”或“得州皮爾蘭樹枝修剪”之類，然后撥打搜索結果中的幾則商家電話。在她登錄并去電的網(wǎng)站中，有一家屬于本·希爾維，他是在澳大利亞出生但在亞洲居住的潛在顧客提供者。

然而，希爾維沒在休斯敦開公司做樹枝修剪服務。一生中從未觸碰過鏈鋸的他說：“我絕對不懂這個，我或許能告訴你手應該握鏈鋸哪一端，但僅此而已！”不過，他向需要消費者的生意人銷售凱莉這類顧客的來電，生意很火爆。

在這個例子中，希爾維和皮爾蘭地區(qū)的樹枝修剪服務商已達成來電銷售協(xié)議，凱莉的電話會被直接轉(zhuǎn)接過去。

希爾維說他的生意蒸蒸日上：“2013年，我在澳大利亞建立了自己的第一個網(wǎng)站——害蟲防治網(wǎng)，自那以來，每年的生意越來越好。第一年，如果每天能有二三十通電話，我就很驚喜了。現(xiàn)在，如果一天接不到1000通，我會很失望。”

當他的數(shù)百個網(wǎng)站中出現(xiàn)一通電話時，希爾維的通話系統(tǒng)會將其轉(zhuǎn)接到出價最高的客戶?！暗谝宦曗忢懙臅r間內(nèi)，我們的軟件進行多重計算，包括哪位客戶能安排出時間，這樣來電顧客預訂可能性更高;而且最重要的，哪位客戶為我轉(zhuǎn)接電話支付的傭金最高！”

對于每一通電話的確切收入，希爾維三緘其口，表示無法給出答案?！笆紫?，不是所有電話都有收入，未接通電話、推銷電話、來自過往消費者的電話等不會帶來收入;至于能帶來收入的通話，各個行業(yè)金額不同。比如樹枝修剪服務，消費者不太可能成為企業(yè)客戶的回頭客，所以我向企業(yè)客戶收取的費用肯定不到100美元，甚至可能會低于50美元。但如果是會計或記賬業(yè)務，那可想而知，每一位來電顧客的終身價值很高，因為他們可能在多年里年度消費數(shù)千美元。因此，每轉(zhuǎn)接一個這樣的消費者，我會收取商家四位數(shù)的費用?！?/p>

雖然希爾維選擇直接將電話轉(zhuǎn)賣給企業(yè)客戶，但這不是提供潛在顧客的唯一方式。

實際上有數(shù)個來電付費式廣告網(wǎng)站承諾為潛在顧客提供者每通符合條件的通話支付固定費用。希爾維解釋道，這些網(wǎng)站尋找、管理來電買家，吃力不討好，不過會收取高額附加費。他說：“通常，新潛在顧客提供者發(fā)現(xiàn)這個行業(yè)的企業(yè)客戶端最耗時耗力（這樣的想法確實正確），因此，他們寧可少收入50%—70%，將所有來電賣給網(wǎng)站。網(wǎng)站負責企業(yè)客戶端工作，并每月給潛在顧客提供者一筆費用?！?/p>

希爾維說，盡管有數(shù)百家企業(yè)和潛在顧客提供者競爭谷歌搜索前排位置，這一行業(yè)的收入仍很可觀?！邦愃啤~約市除床虱’的搜索每月大概有600至800次，冬季更多。”

“每位顧客最終將支付幾千美元解決床虱問題。所以，僅一家網(wǎng)站就可帶來每月超過100萬美元的銷售額;即便你的傭金很低，10%的抽成也是非常豐厚的網(wǎng)站收入?！?/p>

類似希爾維網(wǎng)站的運營是否合法很復雜，因州、因國而異。但希爾維認為，除了在開始接電話前由律師審核所有網(wǎng)站之外，有一個避免麻煩的簡單原則：“潛在顧客生成的首要原則是，不賣來電給問題企業(yè)。如果顧客消費體驗好，永遠不會有問題。”

經(jīng)營個人系列業(yè)務8年后，希爾維創(chuàng)辦了代理機構“潛在顧客指揮官”，開展“幫建服務”，替客戶創(chuàng)建可創(chuàng)收的潛在顧客生成網(wǎng)站。

“對我來說這是門好生意，對我的客戶也很有吸引力。花上三四萬美元，他們就能入駐可創(chuàng)收的網(wǎng)站，有時網(wǎng)站每月為他們帶來可觀的五位數(shù)收入?！毕柧S補充道，“對我來說，這是另一種很好的收入來源，因為我們對客戶的收入收取提成以長期運營網(wǎng)站。”

顯然，企業(yè)可通過從潛在顧客提供者處購買來電獲益，但對于自行開拓潛在顧客而非購買來電的企業(yè)來說，線上競爭加劇對他們的影響不甚明了。相比于僅和當?shù)氐钠渌丈谈偁?，小企業(yè)如今越來越需要與有可能不斷增加的潛在顧客提供者競爭，招攬顧客變得更加困難。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎者）