Selling business for lead generation ?

[consultantinginfo]

I've run a niche legal business on the side for over 10 years. I'm moving country in a few months for a different job and wanting to know the best way to capitalise on the current business.
The website performs well in some keyword searches. I only cherry pick current easy leads and that is worth approx 25-40k per year. To a larger firm the leads may be worth as much as 100k possibly. I don't think selling the website would be helpful as probably not worth a great amount and feel leads would be the best way to move forward.

Are there are websites that take over leads/buy leads for legal industry?

Any ideas how I should approach this moving forward?

Thanks

 

[1977]

Are there are websites that take over leads/buy leads for legal industry?

Yes, it’s very common and a business model SEOs like me use to diversify income.

You need to pick up the phone and talk to the right people and either discuss the price of the leads

Or

Rent (do not give them access to the site) the site to a company for X per month

 

[consultantinginfo]

Yes, it’s very common and a business model SEOs like me use to diversify income.

You need to pick up the phone and talk to the right people and either discuss the price of the leads

Or

Rent (do not give them access to the site) the site to a company for X per month

Thanks for the feedback. Are there any reputable websites for selling leads or are these all cutting a chunk of the revenue for not much gain?

How would one go about finding someone who sells legal/law leads and arrange to sell them direct to them? I don't want to pick the phone up and call competitors directly in my industry. Looking for the marketing agent really.

 

[Clinton]

To a larger firm the leads may be worth as much as 100k possibly. I

The first thing you need to do is get into a different mind set.

No serious buyer is going to give that 100K figure the slightest bit of notice. What could happen, what might happen, what they could possibly do differently etc etc are not going to wash. It's about what's on the table now. The leads you haven't used / converted / profited from are irrelevant.

Your business generates some profit, good. I don't know what you mean by approx 25K to 40K. Get the exact figures together! You need to have proper accounts clearing showing the revenue. Then disclose what it was for each of the last three years.

My advice: Sell the website. You're correct in that it's not worth much but your thinking along the lines of the leads being worth more ...is flawed.

Whether they're buying the website or leads, many buyers will want to deduct from that figure a cost for your time. They won't figure your time at minimum wage.

That'll then give you the net profit the business is generating (or you'll get buyers talking about SDE and other terms which mean pretty much the same thing).

Be prepared to show a ton of information to prospective buyers. They'll be interested in, for example, guest access to your Google Analytics (or downloads of your raw logs) to investigate your referrers and to see if you have excessive reliance on a single referrer. Being #1 in Google is actually a disadvantage here as traffic from SERPs is highly unreliable and can be wiped out with a single algo change.

If you're talking to competitors, they'll likely be very savvy and will be able to spot flaws in your business that reduce its value. Also, they'll get all the referrer information etc and then possibly walk away from a deal (and use some of that info to their own advantage).

A newbie who doesn't know what he's doing is an easier target. But he'll likely want full control of your website ...and that's a risk in itself. He could screw up the website (and probably will). This is also a good reason to sell the site itself.