Prospecting For Home Business Leads

It doesn't matter if you are In Shaklee, Xango, Herbalife, Quixtar, Unicity, Natures Sunshine, Melaleuca, or Mary Kay, or have some other form of health and wellness home business, we all need leads. We need people who will become customers and new distributors to grow our business. Prospecting for leads effectively is the key but may not be the only way open to you.

Chances are, if you've been in your own health and wellness small business  for a while, the subject of prospecting new leads probably crosses your mind on a fairly regular basis. You are not alone. No matter how big a business you may be, you are either growing or dying. Usually this depends on how much prospecting for leads the marketers are doing in order to show the product or the business opportunity. Growth is always the favoured direction and prospecting is the key. That's why Pepsi and Coke continue to spend mega bucks on advertising even when just about everyone on this Planet recognizes their names and some even buy their products.

So while everyone may think their particular product is the best in the World and "sells itself" or they may think they've got the greatest system or pay plan for success, the bottom line is this: every business needs prospects but most of all every business needs customers. By the way, I've yet to see a product pick up the telephone, talk to a customer or transport itself to a store or a person's house. People move products, products don't move people or themselves. People move people. The purpose of prospecting is to find new customers.

Finding Customers: Types of Leads

Problems and Issues: Warm Market Leads

If you are part of any typical network marketing company or direct sales organization, it will always recommend you talk to your family and friends first about the business opportunity or products. (Sadly, this is the beginning and the end of their lead generation system.) This is called "warm" market prospecting because these people already know you and will sit down with you to see what you are offering. Often the company will tell you stupid stuff like "everyone gets in" but the reality is some might, but often they won't. They will say something like: "They might get in some time in the future, after they see how it's working out for you" This may sound reasonable to them but it really means "no way I'm doing that". You on the other hand, are left to wonder about all your lack lustre friends and relatives who sounded so smart before you got in your own business. It also may dawn on you that you can't build a business if no one gets in because they are waiting to see you become successful before they join. Oh. I am not suggesting that you can ignore friends and relatives but don't expect very much from them especially at the beginning. After you develop an awesome story, they may come looking for you.

'Warm" leads suggests something like "warm and fuzzy" which is often not an accurate description of what actually happens. These friends and relatives can also be the most opinionated, rude and downright hurtful about your new venture. I sell tons of bread in my traditional distribution business, Bread Roots and not a single loaf is sold to a friend or a relative and never has. In fact, my business is hardly never discussed among this group because there is no interest. So why should it be different for my other business interests or your other business interests? The truth is all business is built through strangers or new customers.

It's this "everyone get in" sales pitch that gets brand new prospects really excited the first day they get in. That tied with the "product sells itself" and let the "cd" do all the talking sounds just great. You can excuse the new prospect for thinking "this is going to be easy". That's what they have been told. So when a brand new person eventually finds out that the marketing people have embellished reality a bit, they quit the business. They rationalize this decision by saying something like "well that didn't work for me. I guess it's just not meant to be" The real truth is that in any business, the success is in the numbers. Prospecting habits are the answer. How many people you talk to, how many listen to a business opportunity presentation, how many get in, how many get in and actually buy something and how many get in and actually do something? It's also calling on all the "no's" and "laters" you met the first time round. I believe the fundamental flaw in many network marketing companies is that they don't tell people the real numbers. People join and quit based on wrong information. Great.

Those new prospects who follow the advice of their "business mentors" will contact all their family and friends and some will have great results and others will have nothing to show for it except they learnt a whole lot about what doesn't work. Of course, that's when "the Upline" throws in the story of Thomas Edison on how he found 1000 ways to make a light bulb that didn't work before he has successful. Having contacted everybody on his list the new recruit is basically out of business until he finds a new prospect. Besides hanging out at the Mall, Farmers markets or Flea markets, there are very few places to meet new prospects other than joining the local social and business clubs so the issue of buying leads often arises.

Buying Leads

I have bought many thousands of leads on a daily basis and sent e mails to them all.(no spam) I have written some wonderful letters and some lousy letters to these purchased leads. The results were about the same: zero response. Leads often come with fancy titles like "double opt in", "single opt in", "premium leads", "gold leads", "auto responder leads", the list goes on. I have just finished several campaigns where I sent out 230,000 e mails over a period of a month. That's about 7,000 per day. These were people who were apparently looking for a home based business. Guess how many positive responses I received? Zero. Not one response, not one new customer. (I promote only highly credible products and companies) I find that a little amazing. "Am I that bad a writer? Did I do anything right? What did I do wrong?" I don't know. All I know is that I tried contacting these type of leads last summer with no response and like the stubborn person, I am, I tried again in February. Maybe I just bought them from the wrong company. But then I have purchased leads from at least 4 different companies with the same results. Some people may say I quit too soon. I don't think so. If you have a success story from buying lead lists please e mail me. As long as you are not in the business of selling leads, I will put your story right here.

My Purchased Lead Success Story

(Yet to be published)

Thankfully, there is another way to build a home based  business.

Business Lead Prospecting

Business Lead Prospecting Using the Product to Attract New People

One thing I've noticed about my home business is that I rarely meet people who just happen to walk into my house. Business lead prospecting requires you to be proactive. If I want new business, I must leave my nice cosy home and go out and meet people. (unless I'm marketing on the Internet) If you are selling a food product or even some kind of wellness product, you might want to consider setting up a stall at your local farmers market where people care about nutrition. If you're selling some electronic gadget or some other non food item or service, perhaps a reputable "flea" market would be better. Business lead prospecting doesn't require you to go blow your brains out with some trade shows and home shows were the rent can be very high. If you've done the smaller venues, and got a real good fix on your target market, the expensive trade shows maybe ok in the future, but not at first.

Business lead prospecting does require that you find the right market for your product. About 15 years ago, I made and sold homemade sausages at 4 different farmers market close to where I live in Southern Ontario, Canada. I had been in one year round market for about 2 years and on a good day, I would sell $500 worth of product. Through relatives, I learned that a new short term farmers market was opening up in the Toronto area. I went and on the first day sold over a $1,000 worth of product from all new customers who had no idea how good these sausages really were. Other markets in smaller towns in the are only grossed about $150 to $200. So location is really important for business lead prospecting. Sam from Walmart was asked "what was the most important factor in the success of a Walmart store?". His answer was "location, location, location." So if it was important for Sam, it's important for you.

Business Lead Prospecting Using Signs, Banners and Such for Lead Generation

If you've got a really nice expensive looking car already, you might want to put a promotion for your company or product on vinyl letters on the back window or someplace on the car where you can read it easily. I know some people have had success with this method. It depends on the car, the signage and the person driving the car. Don't be buying an expensive car just to do business lead prospecting. I have 3 trucks with both the Bread Roots name on them and signs for a home business opportunity on the back and after 1 year can say, I should have kept my money. Neither sign seems to attract any business. Keep in mind however, I am in a very small niche market with both the organic bread and the "wellness opportunity". Such signs might work much better for a mass market business.

Business Leads Prospecting Using Newspaper advertising for Lead Generation

They say that in Cobourg Ontario, people only buy the local paper to read the obituary column. After spending money advertising a business opportunity over several weeks with no calls, I tend to agree with that assessment. I just can't quite believe everybody's making all the money they want and are totally satisfied with their current lifestyle. This may not be true of your town. Try It. Don't make long term commitments. Just don't blow your brains out. In my old days in real estate, I just put in one ad per night, never a string of the same ad over several nights. If you do advertise this way, I understand the classified section is best and also the cheapest. I also know that Tim Sales the author of Brilliant Compensation and a highly successful network marketer was recruited by an ad.

Get Yourself Invited

Depending on your product or service and your product/market knowledge, you could get yourself invited to speak at the various clubs like the Rotary, Lions, Optimists, or Chamber of Commerce or your local BNI group. If it's a health product, you might try connecting with the local health oriented consumer groups, if your product addresses any of the issues they meet to discuss. If you do speak intelligently on the subject, you will attract people to you, rather than you chasing them. This method gets the numbers working for you: instead of presenting one on one you are presenting to 10, 20 100 people at a time. You will be the local expert. It's best if you take the approach of "speaking to give" rather than "speaking" to get at these functions. In my opinion, it shouldn't be a direct sales pitch. I always go for the "soft sell" rather than the "must sell or hard sell" approach.

Prospecting Using the 3 Foot Rule: Hand Out Cards, Talk to Anyone and Everyone

This works best for naturally outgoing friendly type people who are a perfect fit for the of the "meet and greet" approach. Some people are just spontaneous talkers. Enthusiastic words flow through them like the chirping of birds first thing in the morning. They talk to anyone and everyone about anything. If focused on one thing, they can be dynamite. My sponsor in the wellness business is just a bundle of energy who never stops talking all day long. Ask her how she builds the business and she'll tell you she just talks to people. If that's your personality, go for it. If you are a good actor you can play this part and after you're super successful, you can quit. You can be like the actor Cary Grant wrote about himself as a eulogy at his own funeral. "I acted the part of Cary Grant so long that I became Cary Grant." "If the mind can conceive it, the mind can achieve it." Napoleon Hill

Websites and Lead Generation

Lead generation is one of the major reasons why companies have websites. (It's certainly the major reason why I have websites.)  The hope is that their potential new prospects will find them. With literally billions of websites that's becoming increasingly harder unless you know the rules of how to play the game. The rules are elusive and subject to change. Unless you happen to be a fly on the wall at Google, understanding the rules can be frustrating. Maybe there are no real rules, maybe the rules change monthly. Anybody who claims to have this all figured is not exactly telling the whole truth.

There are some companies out there who advise small business owners to gather their own leads through developing their own websites. In theory, a well written website with lots of content and positioned well with the right keywords and meta phrases will be found by people interested in your product or service. Did I mention, there were now how many billion websites? How do you get people to find yours? Well you could talk to your friends and relatives and people in line at the mall. That sounds like you are right back at the beginning. Many in network marketing companies have a replicated company website. According to some sources, Google ignores such website as being redundant: Just cluttering up the internet with the same ol' content on hundreds or thousands of sites. Yuk.

I believe websites are extremely important for developing business. Search engine optimization (seo) is key. SEO Even replicated websites fulfil the purpose of providing information to customers. It's just that you have to send all the customers there. They'll hardly ever find you by searching. Unless of course, you brand your name--more on that later.

Websites provide another very useful function and that is educating your clientele on the need for your product. Often people don't even know anything about a product so how can they need something they know nothing about. So how do you get people who don't know what they want to go to a website they never heard of to find out about a product they don't even know they need. Good questions. Tell that to the guy who tells you the "product sells itself". It kind of reminds of the lady walking by this absolutely gorgeous front yard who said to the gardener that "God sure makes a beautiful garden". To which the gardener replied "Yes HE does and you should have seen it when God had it all to himself".

Lead Generation: Blogging

If you have a business website then blogging is a must. I use Twitter as a mico blog. First, it gives your customers up to date news about your business. Second: It helps improve your website rankings on Google because you will have an RSS feed of your blog on your website. Besides these two very good reasons to blog, you should over time develop a readership of people interested in your product or service. Consequently, you will develop a relationship with these customers over time based on your blog. These readers will contact you by phone or via the blog and become prime new customers for your business. Often people will read a your blogs over a period of time if they find them interesting, informative and entertaining. (not necessarily all 3) So don't expect immediate results, everything on the internet takes time. By the way, don't forget to submit your blog url to Google so it can find you. Otherwise, it could take months and months.

Veretekk and Prospex

Both these affiliate programs are designed as lead generation services with Veretekk being more oriented to search engine optimization (seo) based on the keyword you choose as a user name. Both services offer lots of free services and information in order to encourage people to sign up with you.

Veretekk has Bully Pulpit feature which allows you to send an email to about 10,000 emails per day. It also has a built in autoresponder system which you can modify as you wish and have as many campaigns as you wish. Now you can unload unlimited numbers of leads to the system. All leads will receive an opt in email to avoid any issues about spam. The Veretekk system consists of 20 Traffic portals which are designed to capture leads for you and 20 SEO portals which are designed to increase your search engine rankings. In 2010, Veretekk will be introducing V2 which is basically a redesigned main format which will be very big on social networks and dynamic ever changing content including video and blogs. There is a weekly state of the union web conference call every Monday night at 9.00 pm est. Simply sign up as a free Silver and you can test drive the system to see if you like it.

Prospex is fairly new to me but so far I have learned lots about social networks, blogging and video blogging. There's also a ton of aricles about home business and network marketing as well as free teleclasses about networking and internet marketing.

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