Week 02: Progress update on building a lead gen business

John Porini

Dec '25 • 🛣️ Lead Gen Progress Threads

Progess update

First some quick resources. If you missed it, here's the first thread

Weel 1intro post: https://www.skool.com/leadcapture/follow-along-as-we-build-a-mortgage-lead-gen-brand-from-scratch-leadcapture-mastermind-members-only

I’m moving fast, but only working on this a little at a time.

Brand + Funnel Setup

Brand site is mostly set up along with all disclaimer requirements (I could keep going but there's no point, so stopping there)
Three lead funnels built (more on that in a sec)
Unbounce landing pages are live and mobile-optimized
Meta + IG accounts are set up
Pixels/tracking installed across the brand site and funnels
Funnels QA’d

Buyers

LeadCapture naturally gets inbound from people looking for leads — usually mortgage LOs, real estate agents, and insurance agents. Normally I refer these out (especially FEX), but for LOs I’m going to lean into this and see if I can build a list of buyers.

Two LO buyer leads came in this week looking for refi leads, so I’m seeing if they’re interested in what we’re offering here. Plus, I’ve got my friend who we’re launching the first step with.

Somewhat related, I’m expanding my network with more buyers across the industry. I’m planning to build a vetted buyer list that others can tap into (more on that in another thread).

Coming Up This Week

I'm going to launch a couple of campaigns at very low spend just to warm up the ad account, get approvals, and test basic mechanics. Not trying to scale yet , purely setup and testing.

First campaigns:

Campaign #1: Refi
Campaign #2: General home equity assessment

A Couple of Key Points

1) Angles + Hypotheses

Hypothesis #1:Positioning the funnel as a home equity assessment will drive high-volume, high-intent leads. I'll still run more generic funnels (“Get matched to a lender for the best refi rates”), but I’m also testing a Home Equity Score approach where they get an actual score on the thank-you step.

To do this, we enrich the lead with real estate data The idea: give the prospect something that feels more valuable than just a form, real data they can act on... while giving the LO a stronger reason to follow up.

This framework is repeatable across tons of industries. Showing data on the thank-you page isn’t required, but I’m adding that step.

The risk here is getting unqualified leads, but if I do it right, the quiz funnel should filter those out and then maybe I can sell them off or nurture them later. Not going to overthink it right now.

Hypothesis #2:Mortgage lead buyers will value the depth of data we provide and pay a premium. We’ll be enriching leads with 20–60 data points: mortgage balance, homeowner verification, LTV, equity %, etc. Then we validate the phone number.

This gives us segmentation options and the ability to charge different prices per lead. Profit isn’t the priority yet.. validation is.

2) Landing Page Setup

Landing pages are built in Unbounce. Nothing crazy, just a headline and the funnel. Far from perfect, but I don’t care. I’ll optimize later. Ultimately these will move into LeadCapture once we launch the funnel version.

3) Critical Path

Right now the critical path is simple:Launch the foundational stuff → get everything in place → get ads approved → get the first leads.

The critical path will evolve, but there’s no point worrying about anything outside of it yet.

Coming Up Soon

Start running ads this week (time permitting)
Follow up with the random inbound LO leads
Lead distribution update — cool stuff coming
Get outbound stuff setup (using social and emails to start) I've got lists of thousands of LOs for outbound

I’ve got a billion things going on (sick kids, holidays, etc.), so perfection is not an option. The only priority is staying aligned with the critical path.

I’ll post another update at the end of the week.

Screenshots of the landing pages are attached. Headlines are more placeholders and will get refined a bit after I create the ads, I just wanted something in there for now. Optimization will come later. For the first step though, I'll be testing with starting with a simple pre-engagement statement like that vs asking for address

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Week 02: Progress update on building a lead gen business