Should I Push My Current Lead Gen Business ($8k-$12k/month now) Further or Shift Focus to a More Scalable Opportunity?

[Akrtw1]

(I also posted this in another forum as I want to get more expert advice. Mod please let me know if this is not allowed. Thanks.)

Hi everyone,

I’m running a legal lead generation business in Singapore, primarily focusing on personal injury leads for law firms. Here’s a quick rundown of my business:

1. SEO & SEM: My website attracts daily inquiries for personal injury compensation through SEO and SEM.
2. Sales Process: A sales rep qualifies leads. If the lead meets the lawyer and signs the engagement agreement, I get paid, and the sales rep earns a commission.

Right now, I’m netting $8,000–$12,000 per month. I feel the business is stable and can survive even without much of my time. If I really try to push hard, my gut feeling is I could grow it to $15,000–$20,000 per month but I might be wrong. After all, the Singapore market is small, and I may be close to maxing out the potential here:

1. SEO: I’m ranking quite high for my target keywords, but outranking government sites or other top players seems unlikely. (See screenshots below)
2. SEM: I’ve hit a sweet spot for spending. Scaling aggressively only increases cost per lead, which cuts into profits.

(These are already reasonably broad money keywords. Think "work injury" or "personal injury calculator".)

I also tried expanding into other legal areas, like criminal law, but those niches have smaller search volumes and lower returns. The main issue is that the margins for lawyers in these areas are much smaller compared to personal injury cases. Because of this, lawyers can only afford to pay me a limited amount per lead, which makes running SEM campaigns unprofitable as the cost per lead often exceeds what I can charge. As a result, I’ve focused solely on SEO for these niches. While I’m already ranking quite well for these keywords, the overall search volume is low. That said, this SEO effort still contributes an additional $3,000–$4,000 per month to my revenue, which is a nice supplement but not a game-changer.

---

My Dilemma:

My skillset includes SEO and coding, and I’ve previously built a legal AI SaaS product (but the market is too small and lawyers are SUPER traditional here. They would rather read books lol.) Now, I’m wondering if I should shift my focus to building a consumer mobile app or another international, scalable product. My goal is to hit big numbers—$50,000/month or more.

Here’s what I’m struggling with:

• Should I focus on squeezing the maximum out of my current business, knowing the market is limited?
• Or, with my skillset and mindset, is it wiser to move to a more scalable opportunity like consumer apps?

I’d love to hear your advice on whether I should keep pushing this business further or start shifting my focus to something bigger. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

 

[BakerStreet]

I know a company that does this. I googled and see that annual SEO salary in Singapore is 12,000 USD. You earn 8,000 to 12,000 USD/month. What you want to do is shift from working on your business to managing your business.

Put up an ad for an SEO manager for 12,000 USD/year. When you interview them, give them the homework assignment of how they can scale your site to the next level. You'll be crowd sourcing growth ideas. Then whoever has the best idea, hire them and make them execute it.

Same with SEA. Crowdsource growth ideas and hire the person who gives you the best idea.

Then go and work on your next company and check back with your two hires every week. After lets say six months, if you like their results, keep them. If not, replace them.

 

[Ryuzaki]

SEO: I’m ranking quite high for my target keywords, but outranking government sites or other top players seems unlikely.

I wouldn't pursue this either. It'll be a money pit. You may temporarily usurp them until the next update, where Google clearly has a built in "unfair" bias for more official sources of this kind of information. Being #1 for a short period of time won't likely be that profitable considering what it'd take to get there.

SEM: I’ve hit a sweet spot for spending. Scaling aggressively only increases cost per lead, which cuts into profits.

There's this issue in business where constant growth is always demanded, especially once you take on investors and have a board of directors or go public, etc. And that pursuit of growth is what ultimately kills most companies. All the revenue they were hoping to gain, they burned up in wasteful R&D and marketing. If they had just sat pretty and maintained their revenue streams, extracted profits, and not expanded, they'd have had more profit in the long run. And they could have done like you're saying, which is start a new business which doesn't put the current one at risk. Especially since you feel it's fairly automated as it is.

All of this is contingent on whether you've truly maxed it out or not. And then you have to ask yourself at what part of the "diminishing returns curve" you're actually on. If you've already nailed the 20% of efforts that bring in 80% of the revenue, I wouldn't bother unless you're planning on liquidating. Even then you could simply create a roadmap of growth as part of the appeal for a buyer, and not act on it yourself.

 

[Sutra]

Why not just do more of what’s already working? Why not expand into other countries? Why not focus on the type of leads that bring in the most revenue/profit + biggest market, then build an outbound sales team that focuses on getting those leads? Etc etc

Right now the bottleneck sounds like a lack of skills. So until that is fixed you will run into a similar bottleneck in your next business.

 

[eliquid]

SEM: I’ve hit a sweet spot for spending. Scaling aggressively only increases cost per lead, which cuts into profits.

I'd wager this depends on how you are scaling the campaign.

I have seen this, I know it happens...

But, I have also seen SEM campaigns set up horribly ( not saying yours is ) and also not optimized for scale.

Since you mentioned your skills were SEO and coding, I'd prob look into optimization your SEM so that it can scale without much cost increase.

Also, most setups like this generally pay more, the more volume that comes in. So, maybe in a different niche I get paid $27 per lead and my volume is 2 leads a day.

But if I were to bring in 20 leads a day, my price per lead might be $43.

I'd look over what is the cap your attorneys can take and if you were to deliver that many, what they would be willing to pay. If not much more, I'd look at if you can farm out these leads to others so they aren't exclusive as well.

 

[secretagentdad]

If you have a formulae for ranking and lead handling in this niche that you can deploy to the United States with any amount of success you should all in on it. It will blow you way past 50k a month if that's your goal.

That said there are legal barriers that you have to work out state by state that limit the ways in which attorneys can work with you. They can't generally fee split or pay non lawyers for leads framed with the wrong claims. Also the the competition here is pretty nuts. They'll mess with your sites and your lead qualifying people to check your compliance and shit.

All that said, a winning lead formulae just requires one cooperating attorney who knows how to farm out work and get the referral agreements in place. If you've got this kinda traffic you can make money, its just leg work and not the kinda thing anyone would do for fun or as part of a work life balance friendly lifestyle business.

There are a couple old posters on here you could probably team up with if you just posted a threads pointing out you have traffic and need help monetizing in this niche.

 

[Akrtw1]

Thanks everyone for your input!

I know a company that does this. I googled and see that annual SEO salary in Singapore is 12,000 USD. You earn 8,000 to 12,000 USD/month. What you want to do is shift from working on your business to managing your business.

Put up an ad for an SEO manager for 12,000 USD/year. When you interview them, give them the homework assignment of how they can scale your site to the next level. You'll be crowd sourcing growth ideas. Then whoever has the best idea, hire them and make them execute it.

Same with SEA. Crowdsource growth ideas and hire the person who gives you the best idea.

Then go and work on your next company and check back with your two hires every week. After lets say six months, if you like their results, keep them. If not, replace them.

Thanks BakerStreet. I am not looking into hiring for now. This business is my bread and butter and paying my living expense so I prefer to keep expense low and do as much as possible myself first but thanks!

I wouldn't pursue this either. It'll be a money pit. You may temporarily usurp them until the next update, where Google clearly has a built in "unfair" bias for more official sources of this kind of information. Being #1 for a short period of time won't likely be that profitable considering what it'd take to get there.


There's this issue in business where constant growth is always demanded, especially once you take on investors and have a board of directors or go public, etc. And that pursuit of growth is what ultimately kills most companies. All the revenue they were hoping to gain, they burned up in wasteful R&D and marketing. If they had just sat pretty and maintained their revenue streams, extracted profits, and not expanded, they'd have had more profit in the long run. And they could have done like you're saying, which is start a new business which doesn't put the current one at risk. Especially since you feel it's fairly automated as it is.

All of this is contingent on whether you've truly maxed it out or not. And then you have to ask yourself at what part of the "diminishing returns curve" you're actually on. If you've already nailed the 20% of efforts that bring in 80% of the revenue, I wouldn't bother unless you're planning on liquidating. Even then you could simply create a roadmap of growth as part of the appeal for a buyer, and not act on it yourself.

I’ve been thinking about where I might actually be on the "diminishing returns curve," and I’d like to share my thoughts:

• From what I know, there are roughly 80 "claimable" car accidents per day in the city.
• The largest law firm in this space handles around 50-80 cases per month, but they are clearly an outlier. (And I know they are doing some shady stuff, which I never want to get into.) I also know the boss of this firm claims that they are doing 10% of market share.
• Most law firms only manage single-digit cases each month, or at most 10-15 cases.
• Currently, I’m generating 7-10 cases per month, and I distribute across 2-3 firms.
• While "80 claimable car accidents a day" may sound like a lot, most people in my city still rely on offline methods to find lawyers. My gut feeling is that even if I reach 20 cases per month, that might already be close to the maximum achievable.

After all, generating a case volume equivalent to what two average law firms handle in a month already feels significant. But I might be wrong.

I’d appreciate any feedback on this perspective.

 

[tyealia]

Haha, I was just reading your repost on the fastlane forum and about to answer but you have gotten some amazing advice on both forums. Best of luck!

 

[Akrtw1]

Haha, I was just reading your repost on the fastlane forum and about to answer but you have gotten some amazing advice on both forums. Best of luck!

Thanks man! If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear too!

Why not just do more of what’s already working? Why not expand into other countries? Why not focus on the type of leads that bring in the most revenue/profit + biggest market, then build an outbound sales team that focuses on getting those leads? Etc etc

Right now the bottleneck sounds like a lack of skills. So until that is fixed you will run into a similar bottleneck in your next business.

Thanks Sutra, actually you're right. I was trying to type a long-winded reply but at the end of the day, even my gut feeling is telling me I can push to 20 deals a day. As you said, it's a "lack of skill" problem. Then I should just develop my skills.

I might have maxed out SEO. But there might be rooms for adjustments on SEM. Also I can tweak Facebook ads too. I can also fix my closing ratio.

No excuse. Just focus and grow.

I'd wager this depends on how you are scaling the campaign.

I have seen this, I know it happens...

But, I have also seen SEM campaigns set up horribly ( not saying yours is ) and also not optimized for scale.

Since you mentioned your skills were SEO and coding, I'd prob look into optimization your SEM so that it can scale without much cost increase.

Also, most setups like this generally pay more, the more volume that comes in. So, maybe in a different niche I get paid $27 per lead and my volume is 2 leads a day.

But if I were to bring in 20 leads a day, my price per lead might be $43.

I'd look over what is the cap your attorneys can take and if you were to deliver that many, what they would be willing to pay. If not much more, I'd look at if you can farm out these leads to others so they aren't exclusive as well.

Thanks for your reply eliquid. Do you have any good materials on SEM?
Yeah fixing my payout with lawyers and my closing ratio is something I'd prioritise too.

 

[DunderMannen]

What you put your mind and money to is what you get out. Do you not want to scale it? Why not? Are you scared your bread and butter will be ruined because of it?

If that's the case - honestly this business is not for you. Having a profitable business with only yourself as an employee is just like getting a regular job, but with more headache. You never go to new heights, and the business will inevitably die sooner or later. Just like every other consulting/freelancer gig does.

My tip? Sell your empire now or scale it. Getting 36x for it is reasonable, and with that money you can start something new.

And stop being so comfortable, it will never get you to the place you wanna be anyway.