Someone must have recently added me to a list they are selling of people interested in home-based business opportunities. The emails I’m getting now are ridiculous. Stories of untold riches if I simply sign up for their opportunity.

In some ways I feel sorry for these folks. They obviously think I have some sort of interest in their spam.

But this leads me to my point. Don’t buy lists of leads, no matter how much you want to believe that the people on that list are interested in a home-based business opportunity.  The leads that you buy are not reputable.

If you want to develop leads online, do it authentically. If you want a level of automation, set up ads on adwords, and squeeze pages (not my favorite method) and collect your own direct mail leads. Or, you can share great content online that people want to tell their friends about. You can write a great blog with content of interest to your target market. You can connect with people who have similar interests on social networks. You can be a real person.

Oh, and you can also do the OTHER stuff that works: book parties or appointments, network with people in person, etc. The core business that your company or your upline is teaching you.

Purchased leads are a lame way to try to circumvent the authentic system that works in direct sales. (There, I said it.) Don’t be lame. Put the work in. Develop authentic leads that require work, and may actually convert. And don’t spam people. When you do, you give the industry as a whole a bad name.