Feedback Wanted For Idea

[ADAM Web Design]

Hi there,

As I was meeting with a potential client in a bar tonight, an idea dawned on me that hadn't previously. I was looking at this client's existing site, and I realizeed that I did not have the knowledge required (in this case, CGI) to finish the job that he wanted.

Now...I didn't want to send this guy away completely empty-handed, but on the other hand, I didn't know who to refer to him so that he gets ultimately what he wants (he's been jerked around quite a bit on this).

Hence, the idea.

I've got a customer lead that, in my opinion, has at least some market value. It's prequalified, I've got all the information, etc. And I'm sure there are other designers/developers/companies with excess leads or leads they can't work with as well (I'm going to call them "sellers" from here on out).

So part, or all, of my idea would be for "sellers" to post their leads to a site, with the cost of the lead being split 50/50 with me. To ensure that the leads are quality leads, I would do these things:

• Require certain minimal information (customer email and telephone, city, type of site, etc.) Standard "required/non-required fields" stuff.
• Log the IP address of the seller and block those IPs who choose to post fake leads.
• Prescreen the leads before they show up live on the site myself to ensure quality (since it would be all too easy for a designer/developer to post a fake lead.)
• Allow designers/developers who bought the lead (or "buyers" from here on out) to provide feedback on the quality of the lead, which would in turn be associated with the lead provider when (s)he posts future leads. This feedback would also be prescreened to ensure that negative feedback wouldn't be provided to a Seller for insufficient reasons, with IP logging as well.

Other things I would consider:

• Price the leads on a rising/sliding scale depending on the quality of the lead provided.
• Limit the number of people who could respond to the lead to an arbitrary number, say 5.
• Allow Buyers the exclusive right to purchase a Seller's lead for an additional "exclusive" price (I'm thinking base price x 10).
• Customer-supplied leads (although that's done a lot of other places.)
• Scrapping the whole "paid leads" idea and using another source for revenue. The best idea I came up with this, though, is Google AdSense, and I've never seen any stats on how much people actually make with it, thus making me very reluctant to try it. Plus, I hate the idea of giving another designer my lead for free. I don't mind if someone else takes it, but as far as I'm concerned, that's still worth something.
• A "Rent-a-Coder" style site where the base lead is worth nothing, but the poster (if not a customer) can receive a commission 50/50 along with me for the "sale".
  
  Unlike Rent-a-Coder, however, I would have mine as a "silent auction" style, where proposals are submitted in confidence to the customer and, in order to receive the final lead when the customer selects them, the Buyers would have to pay X percent to me (and Seller alike).

Anyway, I just wanted to know your thoughts/feedback/etc. on my idea. So, here are my questions:

1) Would you pay for a lead? If so, would you do so on a flat rate or a commission?

2) Would you pay for a lead from another designer/developer, knowing where the money is going to go?

3) Do you have any other ideas with which I might make money off of this site? (I'm not going to bother doing this for free.)

4) Do you have any other feedback?

Thanks.

[Mac 5]

The whole percentage of the sale, sliding scale, prescreen, etc. sounds like a lot of labor if it takes off. A flat fee may be less work.

There are sites out there that do it for free, what advantage does your site have over theirs? http://webproworld.com/viewforum.php?f=52

Use some of the other websites that are successful as a model, and modify their business plan to match your idea. Go to sites like Monster, e-bay, Hotjobs, etc. for ideas.

Write a disclaimer, you are not responsible... Read the diclaimer of other sites and make yours combining aspects of different sites. May be worth it to hire a lawyer and have them check it now, before it takes off.

[ADAM Web Design]

Thanks, Mac 5. I thought about that too.

The biggest advantage would be that I would structure my site in a way to focus specifically on the lead and sale generation for web design in itself. A freelance forum on a discussion board is nice, but it can only go so far. Without going into too much detail, I would build the site as an actual marketplace (somewhat along the eLance lines, but with certain advantages that they don't have which I won't reveal at this time since I don't want to give away too much) as opposed to a straight "job board".

I wouldn't have a problem by making it a free and open marketplace for buyers and sellers IF there was a sufficient revenue stream from it to make it worth my while (one of the reasons I'm considering the Google AdWords idea, but I want to know more about what people make per 1000 page views with it on average.)

The job sites you've mentioned charge the "buyer". So there is a revenue stream.

[Jerry]

I can only speak for myself, but our main site has received the following statistics over the past 2 months:

impressions: 9,395
clicks: 335
earnings: $137.50

So for an average ,I'd have to say that if you pull the same conversion rates I do, and receive 1,000 hits per day, you'd be looking at a hair over $140.00 per day.

[ADAM Web Design]

Jerry, I'm kind of confused. Are those stats daily stats or over the period of two months?

[Jerry]

on this particular site, it's for a two month period. I was using the reference simply to show what you may expect by volume and clickthrough rate. I assume it would remain close to the same wether you receive 1,000 visitors per month or 1,000 per day, depending on the site.

The site I'm pulling my numbers from is in a very small niche market, and so only gets perhaps 250 hits per day on average. Though I did munge my numbers a bit apparently....

[ADAM Web Design]

Thanks, dude. That's useful information. :)

[Jerry]

Anything I can do to help, Adam. ;)