Home Based Business Leads: Choosing The Best Leads

Posted on August 29th, 2010 in Business by iptools  Tagged , , ,

Choosing the right types of home based business leads when purchasing leads can be a daunting and overwhelming task. If you have invested a lot of money in your leads and they turn out to be bum leads, then you have spent a lot of time and money that could have been used elsewhere.

In reality, the most difficult part of getting started with a new business is getting customers or prospects. Whether those people are customers, prospects or clients, the bottom line is your business is nowhere without them. So leads should be one of the most important items on your agenda if not #1.

So how do you choose the right type of home based business leads and what exactly should you be looking for when you purchase? The following is a brief overview of a 3 types of leads and what they mean.

  1. Real Time Leads. This term has been bantied about but how many people know what it means? A real time lead is just that. You get the lead as it happens. The leads are fed through to you in real time and you have them fresh off of the turntable. These leads are a bit pricier but worth the extra investment if you understand how to work them and work them immediately. If you spent good money on good leads and then let them sit around, you have basically thrown away your money.
  2. Survey Leads. Survey leads are leads where the prospect has filled out a survey on-line answering questions about getting started in a home based business or similar questions. They typically fill out 4-8 survey questions asking things about the capital they have to invest to how serious they are about getting started (i.e., how quickly do they plan on getting started). Nothing is more aggravating than calling a lead and finding out they aren’t quite ready to get started yet; maybe in another 6 months. These surveys cut to the chase and eliminate the tire kickers so you get more interested, targeted prospects. Once again, if these leads are fresh and hot they will be pricier than older leads. It just depends on where you are in your business. Just getting started? Go for the less expensive leads to get your feet wet then move up as you gain experience.
  3. Telephone Interviewed Leads. Telephone interviewed leads can be very good, especially for the beginner. Cold calling is a frightening thing to most and takes a lot of experience before you become good at it, if ever. A telephone interviewed lead fills out an on-line form of some sort, usually on a landing page or business opportunity website and then their information is sent to a call center where a professionally trained interviewer calls and interviews them. They basically pre-screen your prospect for you eliminating a lot of intimidating factors that come along with that “first” call. The prospect is already prepared to receive a phone call from you as the interviewer will tell them that someone will be contacting them. Not much in the way of surprise here. But proceed with caution here. Many advertised telephone interviewed leads are simply only verified through an automated computerized system without an actual interview. If the lead is inexpensive beware. Chances are that the lead is not an actual telephone interviewed lead. Best suggestion is to request a copy of the recorded telephone interview or at the very least, the name of the person who interviewed them if you have any questions.

So which type of lead is best? Only a few have been covered here and there are many different scenarios and options to choose from. The best lead buying advice? TEST.
Testing home based business leads before you sink a ton of money into them is always the best case scenario. Purchase small, get experience and test the waters. If you invest small at first and the leads turn out to be a bust, then there isn’t a whole lot of risk involved. But if you throw the baby out with the bath water, then you are doomed for failure.