0 to 10 Million Leads : Lessons learned from the lead gen trenches
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Transcript of 0 to 10 Million Leads : Lessons learned from the lead gen trenches
Presented by
Ian SmithPowered by
My name is Ian Smith
• I work for QuoteWizard• And I want to talk to you about the anatomy
of a successful lead gen company
Dillon, MT
Seattle, WA
Three topics
• How to build great lead gen funnels• How to build great teams• How to innovate at scale
About Ian Smith
Industry Veteran• 8 years of experience• Helped sell over 10,000,000 leads• First employee at QuoteWizard• As VP of Technology: Built our platform• As VP of Operations: Drive continuous
improvement of our business
How to build great lead gen funnels
Step 1: Learn to ride the rapidsStep 2: Test your heart out
Learn to ride the rapids
Learn to ride the rapids
Two hardest things in lead gen:• Getting consumers to start• Getting consumers to share their phone #
Learn to ride the rapids
What can go wrong
• Not debugging• Building defensively• Assuming the visitor knows what to do• Failing to iterate
Test your heart out
• Your funnel can always be better• You need to test• You need to be bold• And be prepared to be surprised
Example
• We challenged our design team to make QuoteWizard look cool
Our old home insurance lander
Our new insurance lander
Which one will work better?
A. B.
Which one will work better?
-26%
Why?
Looking at the heat map for A
Looking at the heat map for B
What can go wrong
• You make assumptions• You trust your assumptions• You fail to test your assumptions
• But testing and empirical decision making isn’t everyone’s strong suit
What can go wrong
• You make assumptions• You trust your assumptions• You fail to test your assumptions
• But testing and empirical decision making isn’t everyone’s strong suit : you’ll need a team
How to build great teams
Step 1: Know who you needStep 2: Hire slowStep 3: Fight crazies
QuoteWizard’s Team
QuoteWizard’s Team
The four people you need
• Data Scientists– To ask: Does this really work?
• Marketers– To ask: What if…?
• Developers– To ask: How?
• Sales People– To ask: Would you like to try?
How to find good people
1. Hire slow2. Ask good questions3. Stress test
Good people are like time machines
Ask good questions
• Start with the job post– What questions do you have about our company?– What relevant experience do you have?– Do you prefer SQL or Excel to solve a problem?
• Multiple in person interviews– Describe a time when you had to deliver bad news.– Describe an interaction with a difficult customer.– Describe a project that was going badly and you
helped turn around.
Stress Test
Potential candidates should be able to demonstrate the required skills:• Sales person: Do a test call• Developer: Write code to solve a problem• Analyst: Derive findings from sample data• Client Services: Answer an email
Get messy : multiple tests, followups, white boardsGive feedback and see how they respond
Fighting crazies
1. Set expectations2. Aggressively check-in3. Serve people
Bad people are like groundhog day
Set expectations
• Verbal is not enough!• Write it down:– Job Description– Key Results Areas– Career Development Goals
Aggressively check-in
• Project and task follow-up• Regular 1 on 1s• Written weekly reports– Why should I be happy you were here this week?– High for the week:– Low for the week:
• Written corrections when something is wrong
Serve people
• Your job as a leader is to serve the people who work for you
• Often the best service you can provide is showing certain people the door
You will never say to yourself : “Man, I fired that person too quickly”
How to innovate at scale
• You got a funnel. You got customers. You got a team.
How to innovate at scale
• You got a funnel. You got customers. You got a team. Now your problems scale exponentially.
• So how do you keep focus and innovate at scale?
How to innovate at scale
• Step 1: Create a funnel for ideas• Step 2: Pick priorities• Step 3: Keep learning
Funnel for Ideas
• Your goal: Make your team compete on execution, not origination
• We use the PreKickoff
PreKickoff Basics
Anyone can have an idea30 minute meeting with 4 or 5 interested parties to ask:• What do you want to do?• What are alternatives?• What are the business objectives?• What metrics will be used to track the project?• What is the simplest test to prove the value of this
idea?• What are likely internal objections to this idea?
Pitch and Pick
1. The PreKickoff is a barrier to entry• 90% of ideas self select out before the PreKickoff
2. 50% of PreKickoffs end with the consensus not to advance a pitch
3. Every 6 weeks the executive team meets for a Pitch and Pick
Pitch and Pick
• 3 Minutes to pitch your idea• 2 Minutes for questions• Runoff voting – CEO votes last• Top 2 to 4 projects advance into the Tech /
Design queue
You keep learning
Resources are limited
• Every project is vetted by multiple groups of stake holders
• Business objectives are clearly established and refined
• The executive team provides clear direction as to priorities
• Every project is an opportunity to learn, refine, and improve the process
In Summary
“Victory in the next war will depend on EXECUTION not PLANS and the execution will depend on some means of making the infantry move under fire.” - General George S Patton
Thank You!
