The question comes down to who are your prospects? That is a very simple question to answer. Your prospects are everyone you come in contact with. To narrow your prospect down to people who are interested you need leads.

Narrowing down leads can be very simple. Leads are your "warm market" and your "cold market. These are both people you know and those you have never met. Some like to label leads into many categories but these two are what I'll discuss.

People You Know:

Your warm market is made up of those people you know. They could be your closest friends or just some one you see at a local shop. Most companies will tell you the first place to start marketing is with your warm market because there is a trust factor and they are more prone to listen.

Making a list of your warm market leads will be easy at first because it is people you know very well and can easily remember. But you need to brainstorm to come up with the names or descriptions of all the people you come in contact with.

The list could easily be in the hundreds although off the top of your head you may not have realized you knew that many people. Remember, your warm market list is an absolute must and the more complete it is will mean more people you can easily talk to.

Your warm market is the one you hold closest to your heart because it is people you know. You have a new business that has potential to create a terrific income for you and those who come in under you. Your family and friends need to be the very first ones you contact for that reason.

Cold Market:

Eventually your 'Warm market" list will wear out and you'll have to come up with new prospects. Although your warm list is the best place to start, you certainly can not stop there if you plan on growing a significant Home Based Business. The next set of leads I'm going to look at is your "Cold Market" prospects.

Although you may be scared to death of approaching strangers with your business you know it is something you must do to grow your business. The only problem you have is where do you get the names for your list?

Searching the internet will provide you with many places who sell leads. These leads can be fresh or better said "real time" and can cost as much as $4.50 per lead or they can be "aged" leads and cost as little as .49 cents per name.

Lead quality is what you need to look at when deciding what you want to pay. Older leads come with some inherent problems. First they may have stopped looking for a home business because they no longer have the need. Secondly they may have signed on with a company when they first started looking and lastly they in all probability have been called by several reps before you got their number.

Hundreds Of leads For A Low Cost:

The number one mistake most marketers make with the high volume cheap leads is to send them directly to their main sales page on the web or hit them up with your longest sales pitch. Usually hoping 1 in 100 will respond. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way most of the time.

I've paid for as many as 20,000 leads thinking the $40.00 I spent was a bargain, I was sure I would get 10 - 15 sales. I sent them right to one of my direct sales pages, not even one person even attempted to sign up. When I looked at my web site statistics most of these leads only stayed a few seconds and they were forever gone.

Most of the high volume leads like these are people who through some web site clicked a link that dropped them in on my site totally unaware of where they were headed. Needless to say they did not stay long. They simply were not interested in a Home Based Business.

After learning the hard way these people would not buy from me directly and were not interested in my offer I came up with another plan. Every one likes getting things for free. So I created a short simple web page that could be read in just a few seconds and gave away a freebie of some sort. This freebie related to what I was offering so it created a link. By giving their names and email addresses I was able to build an email list who I could market my business to.

When using low cost high volume leads or aged telephone leads you simply need to come up with something that is quick and easy that will open the door for your next call or email.

Fresh High Cost Leads:

The more you pay the more you get is true with these leads. Most often they have been captured through a landing page promoting a specific type of opportunity. These can cost as much as $12.00 a lead. But, these leads are primed and you want to be ready to give them your best sales pitch and to spend some time with them. They are not the best for the inexperienced because of the cost.

The more you pay for a lead the more information they should come with. Leads that run around the $4.00 mark should have the leads name, email address, and phone number. When you are paying $8.00 to $12.00 per lead they will usually come with a lot more information, including but not limited to, the amount of money they have to invest, the amount of time they have to invest, how much money they want to make, how much time they can invest to make the money they want and more.

It would be a waste to simply put this type of lead in a email marketing campaign or a news letter. Because they are actively searching for a specific type of opportunity they need to be contacted as a soon as you have their information. Waiting could and probably will mean a waste of time and money. Many want to start their new business as soon as they can and it's a good chance some one else has beat you to them if you wait and they are in another program.

Many just want a little more detail about your offer. Out of 20 names I might sell to 2-3 of them and may not recover the cost of my purchase. While I may not recover the entire cost of these leads immediately I certainly am with residuals, bonuses and team building. Adding people to my team doesn't hurt my ego a bit either.

Every type of lead you can get has a specific purpose and a specific way they can be effectively used. Family and friends cost only a little bit of time and can be your most valuable resource. Low cost high volume and high cost specific leads are both very valuable and require a time and money investment. If you have a specific plan on how you want to use them they can both be very worth while in building your business.