“We met back in college, we were two internet entrepreneurs, and just connected a vibe … going back almost a decade ago, and just stayed closed ever since, and partnered up along the way, and been having fun ever since.” — Anthony Sarandrea, Co-Founder of All Finance Leads
Anthony Sarandrea and Josh Elizetxe (LinkedIn: @anthony-sarandrea, @josheeeeeee, Website: AllFinanceLeads.com, AnthonySarandrea.com, JoshuaElizetxe.com) these two are paragons in the finance Pay Per Call space; combining forces to form All Finance Leads, old friends Anthony and Josh now find themselves at the helm of a rapidly growing business in the financial sector.
All Finance Leads aims to help clients who need customers in all financial service verticals, including: debt settlement, debt consolidation, debt relief, credit repair, reverse mortgage leads, refinance leads, IRS tax debt relief leads, and many more. With an emphasis on providing intrinsic value to their customers, developing a keen understanding of the market, and constantly driving innovation; this won’t be the last you hear of All Finance Leads.
Watch the interview on YouTube
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Read the transcript
What to Look for in a Business Partnership
“There’s a lot of people that talk a lot in our space. And I guess it’s unlike any other space, but after a while you recognize patterns in someone who is persistent and can implement and just recognize that there were synergies there in an operational capacity as well, and mindset. And then personality is important as well. So we’ve known each other almost eight years now. And so over time you build a lot of that – you kinda know what someone else is thinking. And so it makes sense to partner with people like that. It’s kind of like jumping into a marriage, you want to kind of know the person beforehand.”
Simple as it may sound, we’ve found that this mindset towards partnerships can often be overlooked. Here at Ringba, founders Adam and Harrison, both knew each other for years before forming a business partnership. They were even roommates at one point! Very elementary stuff, but never allow yourself to be so laser focused on financial goals that you manage to ignore red flags exhibited by your business partners. Warning signs can seem minuscule today, but if you’re in this for the long haul, complementary interpersonal dynamics among partners are imperative. Don’t forget to have fun, and make clear communication and aligned visions a priority!
On Dispute Resolution Between Each Other
“We have put our personal relationship first over business. And I think with that comes a deep level of care and understanding more than, ‘What’s producing money? What is producing growth?’ It’s, ‘What’s producing personal growth in our personal relationship?’ So really it’s kind of a simple answer. It comes out of communication. I think we communicate on a very, very deep level. Whether it’s on a very intellect level or very high emotional intelligence level, where the two of us are very good at putting biases to the side and great at kind of laying everything out on the table and saying, ‘Here’s what we’re working with. Let’s solve this together.’”
Anthony cogently lays this out, before Josh quips: “Otherwise I think if we can’t solve it that way we fist fight.” With such a clear willingness to take on more-than-one approach to dispute resolution and petty squabbles, is it any wonder that these two make such a dream team?! This really does hearken back to their first point about clear communication, and constant calibration of priority alignments.
Understand What Works Best for the Business Actually Servicing the Customer
“It wasn’t how cheap can we drive a lead? How many leads? How many phone calls can we drive? It was, ‘What’s going to be the best for the people actually servicing leads?’ And then work backwards”
These guys are just loaded with practical advice. A customer-up perspective can be invaluable when optimizing flows and processes to your buyers. Simple enough, and elegantly stated (on the part of Anthony and Josh!), anyone interested in the Pay Per Call space should incorporate this into their thought process.
Adaptive Approaches to Marketing
“You have to approach marketing in a completely different way to get someone on the phone, and whether that’s creating urgency to do that or setting the expectations”
This came up when describing some of their biggest lessons learned while starting in the Pay Per Call space. Not uncommon among those making the transition from CPA into Pay Per Call – getting someone on the phone who is actually aware of or interested in products or services offered is much easier said than done. At least through the lens of only having a CPA toolkit or mindset at your disposal. Remember that you are learning new approaches, in a new space, where some of your traditional tactics and techniques can range from non-applicable to detrimental.
Picking Up the Phone Means Urgency
“We see the behavior particularly with anyone under 50, 55 years old, is that we pick up the phone and we call when we need something done”
Generally, we no longer receive calls or place calls just to “check in,” or for casual chatter. Not these days, at least. Nowadays, when someone picks up the phone urgency can be inferred. This is the value in phone calls that you must recognize in order to succeed in Pay Per Call! In the case of Josh and Anthony, this is especially true for the financial products and services industry which they are so dominant in.
Do Not Fear – Creativity Will Outperform the Competition
“We love competitive markets because it provides an opportunity … we get to piggyback off of the existing behavior of the market and we get to make things better and that’s really entrepreneurship and innovation at its core is making something better.”
Make no mistake, competition is your friend. The parallel audit is your friend. The formula for Pay Per Call success? The heavy lifting of bigger, more resourceful competitors PLUS your inventiveness EQUALS outperforming the competition. Do not look at your competitors as boogeymen, instead consider them wells of inspiration for your own business processes.
Be Obsessive, Be Weird
“I’d say personalization– or segmentation, excuse me, to an obsessive extent. So we kind of become, I always joke we become method actors when we’re learning about, even if it’s a segment within a segment”
On being asked about the specific skills they learned along the way, through trial-by-fire, Anthony dropped this gem on us. Constantly task yourself with uncovering the customer’s journey and perspective. How many times are they getting calls? What are they feeling like when they’re receiving calls? Are they married? Are they not telling their spouse? All of this bleeds through into All Finance Leads’ ad copy and other marketing materials. Walk a mile in the customer’s shoes, and allow that journey to be reflected in your own promotional materials.
Final Thoughts
“As an affiliate you’re going to get treated a lot more fairly by driving calls. It’s a little bit of legwork to figure out how to get someone to bridge the gap from a visit to a call, skipping that form fill, but the value is there because long-term that’s what’s driving the value.”
If you need to take one thing, and one thing only, from our entire conversation with Anthony and Josh, let it be this. If you put in the legwork, the elbow grease, you will be treated a lot more fairly when driving calls. Your contributions will be appreciated, because you are delivering long-term value to your partners. Gone will be the days of being treated like some fly-by-night affiliate!
