servicemagic servicemagic took my money and didn't give me leads Internet

Over a multiple year span, I had success helping many, many contractors. At least one contractor publicly has reported he invested 9K in leads and grossed over 1 million dollars. It is definitely not a scam.

An insulation company in Denver closes about 75% of all leads. I personally heard the owner and two sons all report that in a public forum.

I am very sorry about your experience. It didn't go as planned, cost you money and you felt mistreated by the company. Is that about right? It didn't have to go down that way and I regret it did. So emotion is important. So are facts.

At least 2 of my contractor clients were brought back from the brink of bankruptcy with SM leads with initial investments of about $45 each to start. One of those guys (3 years later) has a budget of $800/mo. for handyman leads and is doing well.

So, here's the real deal. Some consumers input bogus information. I don't know why. That information is transferred through the system like lightning to 3 or 4 contractors. Throughout the system, bonus leads may hit 3-4% It does happen and the company has different mechanisms to get credit for those.

More common are other situations like the consumer doesn't own the home or a realtor calling to get a estimate for a home she is selling. All of those deserve a credit and the company is set up to handle those.

The credit system is a difficult area. SM employees and managers almost always use SM to hire contractors. On one holiday weekend, a company manager put in a request for A/C repair. That went to 3 contractors (the maximum for a repair lead). Not one called my guy. He even called two contractors on his list and got no return call.

On Tuesday, after the holiday weekend, all three contractors requested a credit because it was a bad lead.

When a leads is generated by a consumer, the big hidden computer fairly picks 3-4 contractors for that lead and sends it by text to every contractor at the same time. I'm sure a glitch happens from time to time, but - generally speaking - it's sent immediately to the 3-4 contractors on that list. Remember, there's no business advantage to delaying the delivery of a lead to a contractor.

The machine has nothing against any individual construction pro. The computer program is set up so that it is virtually impossible to segregate out any individual contractor on any lead.

That immediacy of delivery of the lead to all contractors is important because SM is hoping that one of those guys will get back to the customer. It was always amazing to me how many consumers weren't called by any contractor (see example above).

Having said that, there is an element of speed that's important. One university study (MIT) showed that after 30 minutes, your chances of reaching an online leads drops by a factor of 100X. The actual threshold is about 5 minutes.

So many contractors will initially wait until late in the day to return calls. For most jobs, the game is already over. Someone else sweet talked their way in. Or the other guy had a really nice, 100% filled out profile. (The majority of contractors do nothing with this powerful sales tool leaving it at about 20% complete.)

Maybe the other guy has a nice web site to which his profile is linked.

I don't know. I do wish we had had a change to work together. Again, I'm really sorry for your experience. SM is not a scam. Over the last 3 years, they have worked diligently to resole complaints and have an A+ rating with the BBB and they are not a paid member of that organization. This is company that has reached the level of over 15 million or more transactions.

Good luck with your business. Maybe you can find somebody in the SM system who will work with you on some credits to get you going again.