Lead Generation Consulting owns and operates over 5,000 websites focused on retirement and financial topics. These websites generate high-quality leads for financial advisors by providing free resources to consumers and matching them with advisors. The company has an extensive online presence that drives significant traffic and ranks highly in search engine results. Financial advisors can sign up on the company's website to receive consumer leads and have their profile listed across the large network of sites for a low monthly fee.
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1. The Financial Advisors Guide to Independent Business Ownership January 2009, Issue 1
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GoldenNuggetsofEducation
… Firm
Surveillance
Techniques
(Page 7) Page 7
Table of Contents
Letter from the Editor ..................... 1
In the News .................................. 3
Calendar of Events ......................... 6
Firm Surveillance Techniques ....... 7
by Paul Lieberman & Robert Ross
The Golden Nuggets of ............... 11
Continuing Education
with J William Cooley
When You Don't Have ............... 17
A Leg to Stand On
by Dave Williams, CFP®
Not Just Windows: ..................... 21
The Google Phone
by Joel P. Bruckenstein
Apps Done Better by ................... 24
My iPhone
by David J. Drucker
Business Profile .......................... 26
featuring Lead Generation
Consulting
Book Review: Financial ............. 30
Services Marketing
authored by Jay Nagdeman
Lessons Learned from T3 ........... 31
by Marie Swift
Today's Opportunity to Build ....... 35
a Winning Culture
by Jamie Ziegler
Road to Recovery ....................... 39
Schwab Study
For Crying Out Loud ................... 41
by Dan Taylor
Resource Directory ..................... 43
Grin and Bear It! ......................... 45
Dealing with
Temporary
Disabilities
Page 17
Not Just
Windows?
Page 21
THE
INDUSTRY'S
OF ITS
KIND
1st
Planning a move?
Better know about ...
J William Cooley
SuccessCE.com
Page 11
2. Transitions
™
26 May 2009 www.transitions-mag.com
A Conversation With …
Lead Generation Consulting
By Sydney LeBlanc
Can you imagine a firm that owns and operates 5,000 websites? Now imag-
ine that the firm generates consumer leads from those sites and offers to
connect advisors with consumers in real-time at a subscription price that
will pay for itself with the first new client or piece of business that is ob-
tained. Sound like a great opportunity?
T
hat’s what Chairman and CEO David Phillips of Lead Generation Consulting, who is also the
owner of the flagship site, www.financialadvisor.org, tells us his service can do. Says Phillips,
“Lead Generation Consulting owns and operates 5,000 websites, and our largest market is our
retirement vertical. We currently own 2500 retirement, financial-related, and investment websites. And
to the best of my knowledge, no other company owns the type of unique URLs that we do — sites such as
www.fivestaradvisors.com, www.willmymoneylast.com, www.retireontrack.com, and thousands of others.”
Phillips believes no other firm can compare to their web presence on the major search engines like Google
Yahoo, MSN, and ASK. “Our websites show up on the first page of all the major search engines, and it’s
all very relevant geo-targeted traffic. It’s called behavior and attitudinal-based traffic.” He says it’s the
way consumers, especially baby boomers, are searching online that makes it so relevant. Searching for re-
tirement planning in Michigan on the Yahoo network, for example, will show up as #1 among more than
12 million search results, making them #1 in the world. Phillips says it’s all due to their powerful internet
infrastructure that they bring to the table. “They are all true organic natural rankings,” he says. The high
net worth, newly married couples, pre-and post-retirement individuals and more are all searching online.
According to Phillips, the sites have received more than
3.5 million visitors through their approach in 2008. And
the more sites they launch, the more visits they get.
How did it all begin? Phillips tells the story of his dad,
Robert Phillips, and how he was instrumental in de-
veloping the concept. The story goes like this: “When
we started the company, my dad put together an Excel
spreadsheet called Bob’s Calculator,” began Phillips.
“He retired from GM after 32 years and decided to de-
velop retirement software for himself. So, the product
he created determined the maximum amount of money
he could safely withdraw from his retirement savings account to ensure his money would last through
retirement and beyond. It was a very helpful tool. At that time I was head of sales for a lead generation
BusinessProfiles
3. www.transitions-mag.com May 2009 27
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company in Minnesota, and my mom called me one day
and suggested I put up a website with the tool. Mom had
a great idea! As a result, our very first website was cre-
ated as www.retirementcalc.com and we sold retirement
software online.”
Phillips explained that soon after that, his firm and the
software tool was noticed by Ray Martin, the top financial
analyst on CBS’the Morning Show, Money Matters. “The
exposure gave us a third-party credibility for our software
product, and that was very helpful to us. It was about that
time we decided to get into the lead generation business.
As early as 2007, we were generating anywhere from 300-
500 leads per day from our sites.”
The beauty of the
service is the value
that Lead Genera-
tion Consulting of-
fers to consumers
and financial advi-
sors alike. Explains
Phillips, “We offer
free retirement resources online to consumers, and in par-
ticular the baby boomers who really utilize what we offer.
These turn into quality leads for advisors and is a big help
for investors who are looking for a quality advisor.”
Phillips continues, “We integrate with bankrate.com;
they are our strategic partner and provide content for
us. We get a direct feed into our tabs on our website
from them and we also offer our own tools: the retire-
ment calculator, our Retirement Intelligence newslet-
ter, a Retirement Knowledge Center with articles about
retirement and decision-making, a book called Retire in
a Weekend: The Baby Boomers Guide to Making Work
Optional by CFP® Bill Losey. We also just added another
great product that my dad recently developed called the
Social Security calculator, which is also web based. In
addition, we have an affiliate program with 600 partners
that drive links back to our site. For example, strategic
partners like www.seniordiscounts.com — their target is
seniors 62 and older who want to buy senior discount cards
to get discounts for golf and traveling etc. — they have
approximately 250,000 seniors in their database, approxi-
mately 25,000 plus visitors per month and we have expo-
sure to them. That’s been a big part of our success online
— finding the right kind of relevant strategic partners.”
Lead generation services are not new and there are several
advisor match services already available, some privately
owned and some are promoted through industry organi-
zations. So what makes Lead Generation Consulting so
unique? Phillips told us several facts.
“We are unique because of our network — advisors who
sign up are seen on 2500 sites. The
way our competitors are structured,
they only own one website. Most
really haven’t built the consumer
side of their business. They may
be partnered up with a publication
for the advisor side, but not too
much energy is spent on the con-
sumer side.”
“Another thing that makes us unique is how consum-
ers can search for advisors on our network of 2500 re-
tirement and financial related websites as well as the
www.financialadvisor.org site. We have advisor services
and products that are on the site’s drop-down box, for ex-
ample, annuity strategies and ideas, retirement planning,
insurance and so on. So it’s very targeted and specific as
to what the consumer’s needs are and what they are look-
ing for in an advisor.”
One of the first independent advisors who signed on in
December of 2006 said the leads coming from the Retire-
ment Calculator are looking for a service, rather than a
product. Said Chris Radar, President, R Financial Group
in Raleigh, North Carolina, “They are quality leads be-
cause the customer knows what they are signing up for,
compared to other lead generators,” he said.
Business Profile
“We offer free retirement resources on-
line to consumers, and in particular the
baby boomers who really utilize what we
offer. These turn into quality leads for ad-
visors and is a big help for investors who
are looking for a quality advisor.”
4. 28 May 2009 www.transitions-mag.com
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Phillips also described his pricing
model. “We entered the market with
about a third of the cost that our com-
petition charges. So immediately, we
are the most affordable price point
for our advisor memberships. For
example, our Premium Advantage
membership with unlimited services
is only $299 a year. We have three
levels of memberships: Premium at
$150 a year, Premium Plus at $250
and Premium Advantage at $299.
Ninety-nine percent of the advisors
whohavealreadysigneduppurchased
a Premium Advantage membership
because they like the unlimited ser-
vices they receive.” In addition, the
innovative advisors are signing up for
multiple zip codes. They are buying
zips codes in the area they do busi-
ness, and by the highest net worth zip
codes in their state. The more an ad-
visor can buy, the more geo-targeted
exposure they get.
Phillips explains that the advisors
who participate today can integrate
this service with their current mar-
keting programs and by participat-
ing they will have the advantage to
significantly grow their business now
and in the future. He discusses the
potential: “The internet continues to
grow and when we look at the statis-
tics provided by eMarketer, a third
party analytics company (market re-
search and trend analysis on Internet,
e-business, online marketing, media
and emerging technologies) those
stats show that 56.7 million boom-
ers make up the largest U.S. internet
population and it is a demographic
that will be bigger than the kids on
MySpace.com And an estimated
population of baby boomers that
will be using the internet in 2011 is a
whopping 68.3 million.”
Phillips stresses that the statistical in-
formation he offers about his service
is not limited to proprietary research.
It is also confirmed by Quantcast.
“With a credible source like Quant-
cast, it really adds credibility. We can
upload our 2500 site network into
their technology platform, and they
can tell us which websites have a
similar audience and relevant traffic
to www.financialadvisor.org. What
they told us was that our audience
gets the same relevant traffic as CNN
Money, Met Life, Fidelity, Smart-
Money and Bank of America. And if
we throw stats in by Neilson NetRat-
ings: CNNMoney.com was the num-
ber one standout in the business and
finance category. So our relevancy
to CNN Money, MetLife, Fidelity,
Business Profile
SmartMoney, Bank of America, well
it’s really impressive for Quantcast to
say that.”
Is it too good to be true? No more
prospecting? Asking for referrals?
Says Phillips, “Think about it — if
you are a financial advisor, wouldn’t
you want to be on the most trusted
domain name for advisors? It is like
The Who’s Who of Advisors or the
Facebook for Advisors. This is what
we are building, it’s simple and af-
fordable. It takes two minutes to
sign up. Advisors get an automated
triggered email with their passcode.
They log in and with just 10 easy
steps they can upload their profile to
2500 financial, investment and retire-
ment planning websites for millions
to review.” What a great way to help
grow your business!
uuu
Editor’s note: Phillips mentioned
that they just launched their direc-
tory about eight weeks ago and are
US Baby Boomer Internet Users & Penetration
2008-2013 (millions and % of population)
'08 '09 '10 '11 '12 '13
Baby Boomer
Internet Users
56.7 57.4 58.0 58.5 58.9 59.3
% of baby boomer
population
73.5 74.7 75.8 76.8 77.8 78.7
% of total internet
users
29.4 28.8 28.3 27.7 27.3 26.8
NOTE: Baby Boomers born between 146 and 1964
SOURCE: eMarketer, November 2009 / www.Marketer.com
5. www.transitions-mag.com May 2009 29
Transitions
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Business Profile
SAMPLING OF WEBSITES
Lead Generation Services www.leadgenerationconsulting.com
Financial Advisor Directory www.financialadvisor.org
Free Retirement Resources www.retirementcalc.com
Commercial Loans and Hard Money www.multimilliondollarloan.com
Creative and Website Design www.nicholascreativemedia.com
Direct Marketing Services www.bressers.com
Get a Car Loan Online www.creativecarloansinc.com
Real Estate Leads www.hotrealtyleads.net
Retirement Leads www.retirementleads.com
having a tremendous response to
it. As a matter of fact, he was of-
fered $500,000 for his domain
www.financialadvisor.org recently
and has no intention of selling. For
more information on the lead gen-
eration service, visit their website
at www.financialadvisor.org. Or, if
you would like to learn more about
Lead Generation Consulting and
their various internet companies and
how they build hundreds and thou-
sands of microsites for clients visit
www.micrositegenerator.com
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