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What is a Lead?
Buying and selling leads is big business. I earned about a few hundred dollars last year selling leads alone. The leads I sold were mostly to a company called, Citrix®. Their premier product allows you to access your PC from anywhere. It’s called, GoToMyPC GoToMyPC is the most secure remote access service I have used. Say you sometimes want to access your office PC from home and your home PC from the office. If I send you to Citrix and you try out their software, they pay me a few dollars because they got your name, email, and other contact information. This is a lead. Enough information about a person to contact them.

Do You Need Leads?
In Network Marketing, you need people to talk to, people who will listen and consider your business opportunity. Finding them can be a challenge. Traditionally one of the first things your sponsor has you do is make a list of friends and family. This is what happened to me in my first MLM company. They sold me on the idea that this was my “warm market.” It is also very popular for your sponsor to tell you that you need to buy leads. They may tell you that this will give you people who will consider your opportunity. Neither making a list nor buying leads is necessary or good business sense for the average network marketer. Yes, you need leads, you need people considering your opportunity. Talk to friends and family if they ask. But whatever you do, don’t buy leads.

Why Should I Not Buy Leads?
If you buy leads as a way to have people to contact about your network marketing company, you are most likely buying into a scam. Also, the leads you get are not as targeted as you might think. Finally, although I don’t recommend approaching friends and family unless they approach you, the people you share your opportunity with do need to have a relationship with you. Network Marketing is a relationship business. It is not a numbers business, or a charisma business. Most people don’t like to be hard sold on anything.

Exposing the Scam
In this video, the author of Success in Ten Steps exposes the selling of leads as a scam:

To learn how to find people without buying leads, join Mentoring For Free. Michael is one of my friends and personal mentors. If you like, I can get you on the phone with him and answer any questions you have. Most of all: don’t buy leads.