From selling leads to owning intake, with Master Strategies CEO Tim Burd

Tim Burd built a name as the Godfather of Facebook Ads and now runs Master Strategies, working in mass tort leads. Interviewed at ATO Barcelona for The LFG Show, he explains the shift from selling leads to running intake call centers, the tort budget cycle, and why owning more of the funnel lifts margins.

In this episode

• Burd says his Facebook ad buyers group began about 12 years ago without a branding plan; consulting reached about $2,000 an hour before he moved to masterminds, which he prefers to conferences (4:30, 5:01, 8:01).

• He entered mass tort via social security disability, generating leads at about $3 and selling them for $25, then a firm asked about mesothelioma leads at around $500, with cases worth tens of thousands (12:31, 13:00, 14:00).

• Tort budgets are lumpy: firms wait five to 10 years to recoup costs, caps can pause, and he sees three or four strong months a year, so he advises running lean (15:00, 16:30, 17:00).

• Reputation decides access: he estimates about 20 very large tort buyers, works with roughly half, and says bad traffic or poor calls spread by word of mouth (18:01, 18:31, 19:01).

• Intake changes the payout: he gives illustrative numbers of about $200 a lead against $4,000 per signed retainer, and says his call center calls leads twice daily, sometimes for six months (22:01, 22:30, 23:30).

• A 100-rep call center cost about $3 million a month with ad spend, he says, and says they started with four reps to prove the concept before growing (26:30, 27:00, 29:00).

Interview from The LFG Show, published on YouTube.