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You have a new home based business and you have decided it's time to start marketing. The decision you have to make is how are you going to do that and to who. The simple answer is to start prospecting.

Now the question is who are you going to prospect? Again the answer is simple, every single person you come in contact with. Well, if you're like me you will tell everyone who dares come close enough to talk to. These people are known as "leads".

Leads are a mixture of people you know and those you have never met before. In other words, they are your "Warm Market" and your "Cold Market". Of course there are other types of leads but here I'll discuss these two.

Warm market Leads:

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.

For these types of leads you're simply going to do some brain storming and write down a list of everyone you know or have come in contact with. It can be easy at first because you'll write down all your family and close friends, people you see and talk to almost daily.

This list could literally be in the hundreds and keep you quite busy for a long time to come. The "Warm Market" list is an absolute must and one you will need to create quickly to give your new business a jump start.

he 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.

This list is made up of those you hold close to your heart and see every day. They are the ones you should most want to see succeed right along with you. It is them you will want to approach first.

Now For Your Cold Market, People You Don't Know:

Although it could take quite a while eventually your warm market leads will wear thin and you will want to start reaching out to those you don't know. Growing your new business to the point you want will require you to start looking for "Cold Market" leads.

If you do a simple Internet search for "leads" you will come up with hundreds of places willing to sell you leads. They will sell you leads for a price any where from 10,000 or more for $19.99 to 20 leads for as much as $300.00. If you're like me and on a limited budget $300.00 is a lot of money and $19.99 looks more like my cup of tea.

The first thing to consider is lead quality. Usually the more you pay the more you are going to get as far as leads that are responsive to your opportunity because they have recently searched the net looking for money from home opportunities. The less expensive leads are those who have searched for opportunities on the net but may have done it a month or so before. The more costly leads should be those leads that are fresh and actively searching online opportunities.

Low Cost High Volume Leads:

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.

When I first started my web site I purchased huge numbers of visitors to my web site hoping I would get at-least one person to buy out of a hundred. It never did work that way because most were not interested in a new home business. Most were just surfing and stayed less than 30 seconds. It was a little shocking and eye opening realizing they were not in the market for what I was selling.

The vast majority of these people would never take a long look at what my web site was about because it had no interest to them. These types of visitors are simply names who clicked on some add in a program and were randomly sent to my page.

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 dealing with the older leads or the purchased site visitor list it is much better to give them the least amount of information you can at first. Simply give them enough to give some thought. Then as that seed of thought grows you can gradually build on it providing more and more information.

High Dollar Fresh Leads:

I've paid as much as $12.25 per name with high cost leads amounting to $245.00 for a list of 20 prospects. Were they worth it, some would say no. But I say they are if you have a specific plan for them. These are not leads that harvested through some low cost advertisement some where on the net. These are leads that are captured through a lead capture page specifically aimed for your market.

As you start to pay more money for leads you will find out you also gain a lot more information about the person you are calling. With leads that cost in the medium price range you should expect very specific contact and location information. As you get into the higher brackets these leads will have even more information including how much they are willing to invest and more. Their value to you in your marketing campaign has increased dramatically the same as the cost of the lead has increased.

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.

You will approach many different types of people as you begin to go through your leads. You will have the easy ones, your family and friends and the tougher ones, those you have never met. The main point to remember is how you are going to approach them. The most important part of that approach is your attitude and confidence. Being confident, positive and having a good attitude will do the most good out of everything you could try.