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Business Opportunity Customers Not Leads

Written by: Paulette Sherb

Article Overview: Business opportunity leads are not customers. Leads are defined as people who may be interested in your product or service and eventually become a customer. A lead is anyone that breathes. Notice that I did not say anyone that is interested in your opportunity, or any business opportunity for that matter. Leads are not the best way to find customers or people seeking a business opportunity.

Business Opportunity Customers Not Leads

Business opportunity leads are not customers. Leads are defined as people who may be interested in your product or service and eventually become a customer. A lead is anyone that breathes. Notice that I did not say anyone that is interested in your opportunity, or any business opportunity for that matter. Leads are not the best way to find customers or people seeking a business opportunity.

Remember that free survey you filled out and provided your name and e-mail address? Surveys are just one method for generating leads. Any time you give out your contact information you are added to a lead database. Read the fine print and you will see that you are also agreeing to receive information or promotional material.

Lead companies drive traffic to web sites that entice people to opt-in for free services, surveys, newsletters etc. and require you to provide your contact information. These lead companies will then sell lists of names and contact information they have collected to entrepreneurs who are looking for customers for their business. Often the same lists are sold over and over again.

Spam laws have not deterred the sale of leads and you will often see disclaimers from the companies who sell you the leads and offer no guarantees that the people on those lists will want to hear from you.

Leads are heavily promoted to build your customer database and introduce people to the products you have for sale. Lead packages come in all shapes and sizes and range from free to $10 or more per name.

The perception is that the more expensive leads will be more receptive to your business product or service. Leads that are over sold and have been bombarded by calls or e-mails get frustrated and end up less than courteous after they have received multiple calls.

You will likely spend hours trying to work your lead lists and get no results at all. Leads lists have been over used to the point that you may as well save your money and put it to work in other ways to find people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. You may get 3 who talk to you but that is no guarantee that they will be interested in your offers. Purchasing actual customers for your product or service is a much better alternative as you build your business opportunity.

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Article Tags: business opportunity leads, entrepreneur, leads, opportunity business



Related Forum Posts
Re: Conversion rates - Great point Kevin, word-of-mouth is a great way to convert leads as they are being recommended by someone they trust. My job is converting website visitors into leads, and of the leads we get from the website/s we convert around a 12.5% (of leads). At this point I think our website is the best leads vehicle right now.
Re: Thanks 2007 - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":3fx4xoan][quote="jvprosperity":3fx4xoan]Something I've larned more about is the art of saying "No" to something that doesn't fit with the direction I'm heading.[/quote:3fx4xoan] Hi Andy, I think you brought up a very important point. But hasn't there been a time when you've done or attended something which has benefited your direction even though you didn't think it would at first?[/quote:3fx4xoan] Kevin, I meant to say that I was refusing to take on new business opportunity offers. I don't say no to learning something new and asking a lot of questions. If I get approached by an opportunity then I'll look at a way that I can work together or find a way that I can promote that business and send leads their way.
Re: How do you earn trust with an online business? - Hi Ros, When dealing with customers directly, sure honesty is the best policy. However, do you think you should actually make it a point to list the cons on your online business? Or will that deter too many customers/leads? For example, to earn trust, would it be better to post images of a paycheck for "$20" or "$50" for newbies? I mean most online marketing businesses will try to lure in conversions by posting pictures of successful people's monthly paychecks ("$10,000" earned in a month) and then have a tiny print stating "individual results will vary". To me, that's not really being "honest" and that's just selling hype.
Re: How much time during the week do you devote to prospecting? - I like to think of this as a case of the 80/20 rule. For me the key to my business is generating leads for it, I have a system in place that will allows me to automate a lot of the work, I still need people flowing into the system, so in order to answer your question I would say i spend 80 % of my time marketing my business. I think for most businesses,networkers and sales people the problem of too many leads would be a real nice one!!!
Re: Direct Mail Postcards - Great discussion! I just started using direct mail postcards for a business of mine. The leads are generated by the company and then sent to me to place on the postcards that are already made up. It's important to get targeted leads for any form of advertising venture. Finding quality leads isn't tough, but takes some work. Luckily for me the company does this work for me. These people are interested in starting a home business, working from home, etc. That's what I'm advertising on the postcards, so I would say they're very well targeted. The postcards are also made by the company who have over 20 years of experience in generating responses. Now, the problem I see as I deal with this directly working for an insurance company where I call leads, many people may forget that they ever requested information on the subject. In this case the postcard would probably get thrown away, unless it really grabbed their attention or struck their memory. The same problem can be seen when someone needs to confirm their request for being added to your email newsletter.


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