Dodge the FCC & Master Lead Generation: Essential Tips for Digital Marketers

All right, so in this video we're going to discuss the FCC and lead generation and what that means for you and how to adapt so you don't shoot yourself in the foot moving into this new year. This is a topic that everyone should be discussing. Everybody should be, uh, top of mind with this information because if you do not adapt, you will shoot yourself in the foot and you're going to be in big trouble if you move forward doing things the old school way. So I'm going to shed some light on some of the FCC. I'm going to simplify what the FCC is, is doing and what they're changing and how you can adapt to make sure you're set up for success when it comes to generating leads for your business. So let's dive right in. So no more shared leads. The FCC does not want you to buy shared leads. The problem with that is that if, you know, you have someone who's opted in for this thing and then all of a sudden you have this other business calling them for this other thing Okay, that wasn't consented on. So that individual didn't consent. If they came in for an auto insurance policy, they didn't consent for someone selling them health insurance to call them because, you know, they bought that lead. So no more of that. And so there's a lot of businesses, a lot of call centers, and a lot of big agencies that, you know, rely on shared leads because they're super cheap. That is no more allowed. We are not allowed to, or we're not going to be allowed to, to go ahead and do that. And so moving forward You know, you need to be able to generate exclusivity and one-to-one consent. So no more age leads. This knocks the age leads off as well because again, they didn't— unless, you know, they're your own age leads that, you know, submitted information to you specifically, then you have, you know, up to 90 days to contact them. And, and no, before that 90 days, you can even, you know, get them to re-opt in to whatever or re-consent so you can first communicate with them. But unless that lead was generated by you and you can prove it, no more is it allowed for you to call somebody that didn't submit information specifically to you. Now, leads must have that one-to-one consent, meaning, you know, from A to Z, from the, from the ad, from the landing page, from, from the privacy policy, from the terms and conditions, everything needs to state that that lead is, you know, being submitted to X business. Now there's some intricate details that can kind of be done as far as, you know, generating a lead and then, you know, getting them to consent to more than one person. That's a whole nother ballgame. I'm not even going to get into that. But for simplest terms possible, if all you did was generate a lead specifically for your business and that's the lead that you're calling on or texting or using an AI to follow up with, whatever your, your style is, you're able to do that as long as you have that consent. So making sure you either invest into generating your own leads and understanding how to get that consent, or investing into an agency like ours who does one-to-one campaigns for you and, you know, sets all this up for you so that you have the compliance and that permission to contact to do, you know, the outbound and the follow-ups and things like that. Now, leads can only be contacted by one agent, right? So submitted to me, I am the only person allowed to contact that person. I'm not allowed to, let's say I can't, let's say this is a policy of an insurance policy of some sort, and let's say this individual specifically isn't a good fit for what I sell. I can't be like, okay, sir, I recommend you contact this other person because this other person has a better fit program for your needs. I am not allowed to do that., right? Unless that person or my prospect physically submits their information to that other person that I'm discussing about, right? So that then they have that proof of consent so that they can then contact that lead and then, you know, go on with their business, okay? So you must sell what the individual opted in for. There's no cross-selling without a new opt-in, meaning if I submitted my information for auto insurance, okay, That is the only quote that I should be getting. I shouldn't be getting a quote for, you know, life insurance, health insurance, whatever, you know, whatever other thing, okay? We're not allowed to do cross-selling because what the— basically the FCC is stating is that that individual did not consent to, you know, to be sold more than one thing or more than the thing that they submitted their information for. And so there's a lot of businesses, if you've ever been in— if you've been in the industry for a while, you probably understand you know what a co-reg lead is, or a co-registered lead. These are companies that, let's say, generate an auto insurance lead, okay, but then they resell it in their network to other insurance agencies that, you know, sell other things. And so co-registered means it's a co-registered lead, meaning, you know, this is somebody who submitted initially for one thing and now we're reselling it to you, to you, for you to try to sell it, you know, sell your service to them, right?, right? And, you know, because it's a lead that was originally opted in for an exclusive thing and then they're reselling it, that's why they're able to give it to you for cheaper, because it's not exclusive. It's not someone who specifically submitted consent to you. That campaign wasn't generated specifically for you, and that individual has no idea that you're going to be calling them. That's why it's super cheap. That is no longer going to be allowed, okay? So yes, this is creating an opportunity for lead generation companies like us that do things ethically and, and, and know the right way with the one-to-one campaigns. Okay, that's the way we've been doing it from, from day one. But this information is more for those that, you know, want to be, or like being a bit cheaper when it comes to investing in their business and buying those share leads or age leads or whatever it is. Uh, you know, that model is no longer going to be allowed. So paying to play is going to be the new way for you to scale your business unless you know how to generate your own leads, to provide your own consent and things like that, which you have to understand the tech, the setup, the Ads Manager, CRMs, all that type of stuff. So either find someone that knows what they're doing or invest into learning from somebody that knows what they're doing so that way you're set up for success. Okay, leads can be contacted for up to 90 days using whatever means, right? So as long as I have your consent, I'm able to call you, text you, email you, voicemail drop, AI call you, AI text message you, robocall you, robo-text you. It doesn't matter what it is. Even if you're on the do not call list, I'm able to contact you because I have consent. And even if they're on the do not call list, I'm able to contact them because they have physically submitted information to my business specifically, which is why I'm contacting them in the first place. So you must have permission to contact every lead that can be proved. So if for whatever reason, you know, you have a client that says, oh no, you know, and it goes to the— and tries to, you know, report you or whatever, right? You know, if they come after you, you're gonna have to be able to prove that, you know, this is the ad that this individual came in from, this is, you know, the time that they came in from, this is the interactions that we've had, these are the recorded calls that we have had. You know, all these things that you must submit in order for you to prove that you truly have that permission to contact and you truly have consent. Now, there's different things out there that you can integrate into your campaigns which costs a lot of money, but, you know, moving into this new age, I mean, it's no longer about, you know, how much it's gonna cost because, you know, by not doing this, it's gonna cost you 10 times that, and that money isn't gonna go towards leads. That money is gonna go towards the FCC. So, you know, you want to be Be aware of where you're getting your leads from, how they're being generated, where they're coming from, in order for you to be set up for success and not shoot yourself in the foot, okay? All calls must be recorded. And I say this because, you know, I've had to deal with, in my case, I have clients that, you know, in the past have had to deal with, you know, these compliance issues in the point where we've had to submit proof that we physically had consent. Okay, it was just so much easier to prove when we had recorded calls interchange back and forth with the specific person that reflects intent, you know, consent, and all these things in addition to everything else that we submitted as proof that we physically have that individual's consent to contact. Okay, the more data that you have, the better it is gonna be because Data does not lie. And so if someone's saying, oh no, so-and-so, I didn't give so-and-so authorization to sign me up, or this or that, okay, you now have a full recording or multiple recordings and multiple text messages and multiple email threads back and forth or whatever that prove that you truly do have consent, that prove that you truly have authority to go ahead and reach out. Or, you know, even in the case that, you know, they say that they didn't sign up for that thing, you have a call recording that literally says or should, you know, include their intent or their signs of them saying, "Yes, sign me up," or, "Yeah, I'm interested in that plan, that sounds good." Things like that, right? Because you're not gonna go ahead and sell somebody to something that, you know, someone that they didn't request, right? Hopefully not, right? And so that's kind of where this all comes from, is the fact that, you know, there's been a lot of shady things happening in the space, a lot of international call centers in the space, that you can't even reverse engineer where the heck they're at, right? And so, you know, the FCC is just trying to crack down on all these scams and all these things that are happening. And it's a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing as consumers ourselves, we're not going to be blasted with as many text messages and emails and all this stuff, considering the heavy amount of, of things that you need to submit in order to be compliant, right? Because moving forward, you know, telephone, telephonic services like Twilio and things like that are requesting a ton of information in order to actually verify you as a business or as a legitimate company that has legitimate, you know, campaigns and, and permission to contact, uh, processes. So that way, you know, they can then basically whitelist your phone number, uh, that says, you know, this business specifically has been approved, is compliant, is generating leads ethically, and has permission to contact the people that, you know, they're contacting with the phone number that we're distributing to them. And so that's basically it. And, and it's inevitable, right, moving into this new year. You're not even able to really create a phone number without submitting all that information and then expecting that person to receive it without it saying spam likely. Okay, and so that's the purpose of also the verification, so that when the phone number goes out or a text message goes out, it reflects on the other end as, you know, the legitimate phone number instead of scam likely or spam likely or whatever. Because these carriers are getting really crazy with blocking these numbers and, and showing them as a scam. And so if you're dealing with you know, very low pickup rates and things like that, it's most likely because you're not fully verified and the carriers haven't approved your phone number as a legitimate business that is physically doing ethical lead generation. Okay, no more cold calling leads without an opt-in. Okay, I used to love cold calling, right? And it was fun because, you know, you can instantly get a result right away. It's either yes or no, they're interested or not, right? The problem is, is that because of this new ruling, without consent, we're not actually able to cold call. Now, this is a gray area for some because a lot of people rely on cold calling, like real estate investors, solar companies, some roofing companies, and things like this. But up until this ruling gets fully integrated and rolled out and the logistics get a lot more clear, we're staying away fully, completely from cold calling and just focusing on consent, right? And so if you have a big list of leads that you've had consent from in the past, we can definitely work those. If you're generating new leads and you need help working them, those are the leads that we focus on in our business. Those that have the one-to-one consent, those that have permission to contact, and those are the type of clients that we work with in our business because we just do not want to shoot ourselves in the foot. If we can control something, why not control it, right? Control what you can control. So that way you don't have to worry about it later. Now, no more third-party call center model who co-calls data to generate leads and transfer over to agents. This is a huge industry right now because, you know, these Indian and Pakistan call centers, you know, they're able to offer you a lead cost for super low considering that it doesn't cost them anything to generate the lead besides just calling the person. And a lot of the times they're using very manipulative scripts and things that aren't necessarily truly and fully accurate without really disclosing who's calling, why they're calling, who they're transferring it to. And so there's a lot of nuances, a lot of unclear expectations, a lot of confusion being caused on these cold calls that when they transfer it over to an agent— I'm sure if you've experienced this in the past, you probably relate or understand what I'm saying— they have no idea who's calling, why you're calling, how you got their number, why you're even on the phone with them at that time. And so This presents a problem because it's like, oh, I'm just an agent. I just got your information from so-and-so, you know, and they said that you were interested. And the reality is they weren't, right? And so because of that, you know, that becomes a problem. And then the individual's like, okay, stop calling me, stop, you know, uh, I didn't request this, put me on the do not call list, etc., etc., etc. And then it's a big rabbit hole that, you know, is hard to get out of because you can't prove that that person moving forward actually consented to be called, okay? And so call centers with this model will be— I mean, if you're buying transfers, do what you— I mean, I'm not a lawyer or anything, so it's up to you and your discretion to do whatever you want. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm just here to educate you on what we're doing and what we're studying and how we're pivoting and how we're educating our clients moving into this new era of regulations. So that way everyone is aware and you can make and justify the decisions that you make moving forward. Okay, so that's basically it. I mean, this is in a nutshell, uh, a recap of basically what the FCC is stating. Um, and, and I've broken this down in a level, in a way where it's easier to understand. I mean, the document or official documentation is about 35 pages long, but in a nutshell, this is basically what it all comes down to. So Everything else as far as cold calling and this and that, you know, we're not very focused on again, because if we could just focus on people that we have consent on, which are again, are the highest quality version of a lead anyways, is someone that you have one-to-one consent with. You know, that's what we focus on. Plus, you know, it's easier to build trust that way on a one-to-one. It's easier to connect with them. It's easier to set expectations with them. It's easier to follow up with them. And it's fully congruent across the board if you do things right. And so, you know, that's basically it. Hopefully this information helped provide you some clarity. Drop some of your questions down below if you have anything regarding this, um, or any information that you would like me to create a video on. If not, um, if you don't have any questions, go ahead and follow me on social, subscribe to my channel if you haven't already, because I am going to be going heavy on providing you guys information on what we're doing inside of our business, how we're moving into this, and how, you know, we're going ahead and, and maximizing on lead generation moving into this new era. So that's about it for this video. I'll see you guys on the next one.