Phil Risher ranks lead-generation channels by tier. Yelp hits A tier when you have systems behind it, delivering 10× returns. B2B partnerships top the list: one home-service business made $1.5 million from them alone. Email and Google Ads also rank high; SEO takes 6-12 months and lands lower.
Email marketing, I would say A tier. The reason that I put that in A tier is because you need to have a good strategy behind it. It's not just branding. You need to make sure you actually follow up with the people that open the emails, have right call to actions, that kind of stuff. Meta ads, it's going to be B tier, and the reason is because they're not in demand, they're not searching with intent. You're kind of creating the demand, and then it's a colder audience, so you have to actually nurture them and turn them into a customer. It's not like them warmly coming into your business, so it takes a little bit of work. Yelp, I would say it's going to be an A. The reason is because a lot of people think Yelp is a scam because they don't have a good process, but if you have a company that with that has a good system, you can generate 10x return easily. B2B partnerships. B2B partnerships, this is going to be S tier for sure. I worked at a home service business that was generating $1.5 million just from B2B partnerships. If you have a good plan and you build partnerships, it doesn't matter about algorithms or anything. If you're willing to pay the Google gods for leads, pay your local partners for leads, it works. SEO. If we're talking about specifically lead gen and someone's looking for quick wins, I'm going to put this in like the C tier, D tier. The main reason is because if you're just starting out or you don't have enough reviews or you don't know what you're doing, you can't just slap SEO onto a business and and say, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get a bunch of leads. It's usually— they say 6 to 12 months. So it takes a long tail to actually generate revenue for your business. Google Ads is going to be S tier. I still believe Google LSAs, Google Search Ads, are good if you have return on ad spend tracking properly. And the reason is because people are on Google still searching with high intent, and that is where you actually find your customers and they find you.
