Advice on low cost marketing for new business

[JLE1990]

I have a job in sales/marketing currently. I have started my own side business which is in the same field. The goal is for the side clientele to overtake those of my job so that I can eventually go full-time at my own business. The benefits here are that with my clientele I will get residual income which will last forever(industry wide losses to other companies is about 20%/year but I have strategies to lower that) where as with my job I only get the initial commission.

My issue is that I am trying to keep this new business as Mustachian as possible. This means buying low cost leads(read: lower quality) and marketing them or marketing door-to-door. This is strenuous and will lead to lower productivity which means I will make less sales in both my job and sidebiz(Need to make about 50-70 calls per day total to be successful). This isn't impossible for me in the short-term but I am worried about burning out after a few months of this meaning it is not sustainable. Most other marketing options require paying someone else to do the grunt work at the beginning of the sales funnel. This would eliminate a large part profits most likely and I want to do this as mustachian-like as possible.

My questions are:
For the mustachian business owner, how did you start your business? How much money were you willing to invest initially?
Do any mustachian business owners have low cost sustainable options for advertising/marketing?
What kind of marketing platform do you use? I have been trying to find a shareware program that has basic management of calling tasks and allows to have notes about prospects etc.
Has anyone used social media effectively and have some links that I can get started with?

[2Cent]

If you are buying leads are you not already outsourcing some of the grunt work? It depends on what your business is, but it seems to me that it would be better if you could generate your own leads and make sure they are high quality, or at least give you an indication of the quality so you can spend your time on the top ones and skip or outsource the low chance ones when you don't have the time.

[JLE1990]

So I'm buying olddd cheap leads. These are essentially just a working phone number and I would have to take it from there. There's no real way to get leads completely free except door-to-door or networking. At least that I know of, that's one of the main questions I have. At my job for instance we pay $15/lead vs. $.40 for me.

[Saving in Austin]

I started my business 9 years ago and I haven't really paid for leads until the past year or so.

I always found contact info on the internet, created lists, and then blast e-mailed or telemarketed.

This went on for years. Never paid for a lead. I started my business with no investment except time.

I found the web site Fiverr a year ago. I have hired people to help create the marketing lists I used to create myself. I've spent a few hundred dollars but I think it has more than paid for itself freeing up my time to do more productive work.

[2Cent]

So 0.40/lead * 60 average calls to be succesful. So $24 per succesful lead. Plus ofcourse 60 * average call time, say 3 minutes, that means 3 hours investment for 1 sale. I made up those numbers, so you could probably refine the calculation a bit, but what I'm trying to show is that you probably waste a lot of time on bad leads. You could optimise by either using the time to get a better source of cheap leads or getting fast at filtering out the leads you have. Have you thought about texting? If that is not used a lot already in your area then you could try it. Nowadays with smartphones you can send links and have people open a website. Or you can use the internet to find additional information about the phonenumbers you get so you can target people more selectively.

[JLE1990]

Saving in Austin

Wow that is amazing. Can you go a little more in depth in that? Where can you find contact info on the internet for free? I have heard of Fiverr but I never thought it could be used to do marketing. What kinds of marketing do you have them do? Door-to-door? Do you get leads that are local or is there to small of a sample size and you sell nationwide?

2cent
Texting is pretty strictly regulated from the telemarketing act in the 2000s. Prospects have to opt-in to receive text messages to legally market to them. The numbers you're talking about are close to about 1hr/per 60 calls. I'm just looking for other ways that are not as exhausting and sustainable without paying anyone a ton of money.

[Saving in Austin]

I sell services to political campaigns. I look up information about candidates and campaigns online.

All of my marketing is e-mail and phone. I never meet my clients and I market across the country.

What are you selling and who are you buying the leads from ?

Maybe you can go to their source and assemble the leads yourself.

I've taught one vendor on Fiverr how to build my lists.

They are not perfect but it has been helpful.

[2Cent]

https://www.whitepages.com/white-pages has reverse phone lookup. Don't know how well it works in your area though but it should give you name, age, relatives, address and previous addresses.

[JLE1990]

Saving in Austin

Yeah that website will be super helpful for helping me cold call.

I sell all types of insurance and I need personal info to do a quote so I can't JUST look in the phone book. Currently I'm buying my leads from a site called Aged leads Store.

Yeah that is really cool although unfortunately I am only licensed in one state so can't outside of it.

Do you get personal info such a personal address, DOB, DL#? Where do you get your info, off of the candidate websites?

[Saving in Austin]

I just get name, e-mail address and phone number. That is all I need. Sometimes there are street addresses but i don't need them. DOB and DL# are never published online. I've never seen them anyway.

I usually get the info off of candidate's sites or Facebook page.