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The ad said: “Become A Lead Broker”
“… $20,000 Monthly income potential... Today Google showed 70.3 million sites under the search term "MLM". All of those people are your prospects...”
I say, “Why broker leads when one can generate leads?” Leads that a marketer generated him/herself are much better than leads on a list purchased from a lead broker.
Have you ever purchased leads, or used purchased leads? My experience is that purchased leads are largely a waste of time and money. Do you know when, where, or how the broker acquired the leads you purchased? Maybe the broker purchased the leads months or even years ago from another lead source.
Maybe the lead broker did capture the original data, but the data is easily manipulated. When the capture date gets more that a few months old, the broker can freshen up the list merely by adjusting the date to something current (within the last 12 to 72-hours) so he can sell the list as “fresh” leads.
Lead brokers are known to sell and resell, and resell their lists over, and over, multiple times. There is more than one reason for the saying, “The money is in the list”.
People tend to change email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, etc. on a regular basis and for multiple reasons. There are as many reasons as there are fish in the sea. How do you know that the data in the list you just purchased is at all accurate? Quite frankly, you don't know!
Names can stay in a broker's inventory for 10 years, or more.
Lead Poverty
Knowing this, why would anyone in their right mind buy lead list? When new people start out on a business venture, most of them have any sort of a reliable list. Didn't you start at zero names on your first business opportunity? That's called “lead poverty”.
People tend to do desperate behaviors when in lead poverty. When a new marketer has only a few leads, maybe around 10-50 live leads, anxiety sets in and desperation to make a sale, so the new marketer may call everyone on their list every day, or send text messages to those who don't answer the phone, or send out email messages, etc. Come on and admit it, nearly everyone did silly things like this. How many prospects did you actually offend and chase away with such actions? Don't fret over the mistakes. Chalk it up to the learning curve. However, we can help new people avoid those mistakes and teach them better methods.
Most people starting off in a business opportunity don't know how to start making a list of people to contact. They certainly don't want to contact their “warm market”, again... for the umpteenth time. Haven't you been there? (Likely more than once.) Yours truly sure has (more than once).
We don't want to face failure on the first or second day. We start getting desperate We find an ad about purchasing a list of leads. Maybe the ad offers a small amount of free leads as a teaser to get your contact info. Boom! The broker collected a fresh, responsive, opportunity seeker lead just that easy. Maybe it only cost the broker a list of 100 leads to capture your information. That list is likely the same list that he gave to 75-200 other desperate souls in the same boat, this week. Remember that the broker has likely given away that same list for several years to hundreds of other people like you. Do you really think the broker is going to give you a real list of fresh leads?
Your fresh information is worth a lot of money to that broker. Some brokers sell your information as a “premium” lead for $3-5 ea for some purposes, and up to $25-35 ea for other purposes. One guy in the insurance industry said that he paid around $35 ea a couple of years ago for leads through the insurance brokerage he worked in. Tell me just how many of those leads do you want to purchase?
Lead Abundance
How would you like to have an endless supply of leads who want to hear your message and buy your products, any time you make an offer, over and over? If a marketer had such an endless supply of leads and prospects, couldn't we call that “lead prosperity”?
I searched the term “MLM,” and found 25,300,000 results. The term “Network Marketing” produced 51,700,000 results. “Network Marketing sites” produced 20,300,000 results on Google today. How many users are there on Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon, Google, and other forums? There are many hundreds of millions of people using these sorts of forums. All of these people are using and consuming lots of product every day and week of their lives. There are more than enough prospects and customers in any niche of the overall marketplace to provide a very decent livelihood for many marketers.
Isn't the challenge that we all face in marketing our respective businesses? Aren't we faced with the choice of buying lists from someone who has likely manipulated, altered, and convoluted the data, or generate the leads ourselves?
If we generate the leads and data ourselves, we know exactly what interested the lead, the date and time when the lead provided the data, and that a live person responded. Isn't that some valuable data? That information is in your list. It is a unique list. It is a valuable list. There is money in that list.
Outbound Marketing
How does a marketer use those purchased lead lists? Typical uses include cold calling, sending out email broadcasts, even sending solicitations via surface mail. Taking that sort of initiative is outbound marketing. Many marketers have used such methods for decades, and made actual fortunes. However, is that the most effective way to do business, make sales, and generate revenue for the business?
Honestly, who likes to do cold calling? It's hard work, emotionally. It can be effective, but it is frustrating, at best. Who likes getting email from someone you don't know? Don't we all feel a bit offended with a bunch of strange email in our email inbox? None of us like that stuff. There must be a better way.
Inbound Marketing
What if prospects and customers actually came looking for our products and information? Wouldn't that change the whole marketing dynamics?
Marketers can use a blog, assorted social media sites, newsletters, with links to the assorted sites to attract readers. When people come to those forums, read and interact with each other and leave their contact information, your efforts are inbound marketing and those leads are more valuable. The people wanted your information. They wanted to give you their contact info. They want more of what you are offering.
Welcome to inbound marketing. We haven't intruded on anyone and risked offending anyone with our sales pitch. People came with some interest in our products and services. Isn't that lead more receptive to our pitch and promotion? Isn't that person more likely to purchase our products? You can sell to that person more often and for a longer time. That person is worth a lot more to your business than any lead list that you purchase. Inbound marketing is far more productive than outbound methods.
Personally, I would rather have a list of inbound leads that I generated than any list from a lead broker. Using a purchased lead list may be a way to get started, or have something to do while the inbound strategies kick in, but make sure it is only for the short term. Do not count on it for any long term use.
My advice: do not become a lead broker. Instead, implement inbound marketing strategies to develop your own unique list and make more money in your business.
Thanks for reading.
Rix Robinson
