Starting a home-based business is one of the least expensive ways to own your own business. Many people get their start in network marketing. Network marketing companies sell a variety of products from vitamins to highly technical or information products. But all network marketing companies need home business leads so owners can recruit people into their business.

One way to obtain leads is to purchase them outright from mailing list companies. You can do a search online for these companies or scan the many home business magazines on display at the grocery store (i.e. Home Business Connection). Most quality home business leads cost anywhere from $75-$100 per 1,000. You can usually enjoy price breaks on these leads if you purchase higher quantities of them. When purchasing leads for your business, make sure you get "opportunity buyers" names. These are people who have actually spent money on a home-based business. Do not purchase "opportunity seeker" names as these people are usually not high quality prospects.

Leads are usually delivered in ASCII format on disks or on peel-and-stick labels. You should order leads according to the methodology your use for selling. If you want to mail postcards or a direct mail piece to your prospective customers, you can use the labels or disk (print it out on labels) for mailing purposes. If you want to make cold calls, you will need to purchase names that include phone numbers.

If you are calling the leads, make sure you account for where the person lives. For example, if you live on the east coast, call people in the eastern time zone first and west coast people last. You can realistically call west coast people until midnight. They are three hours behind. Use a good script to qualify your leads. Ask them if they have ever been in a home business, and what they want out of one. Then start pitching them on your opportunity.

For mailing leads, people will contact you. You'll need a highly effective direct mail piece to get them to act. Follow up with these people shortly after they call. Your message machine should invite them to leave their name, phone number and best time to call them. Keep track of your sales from each list so you can determine the effectiveness of the list. Keep track of all inquiries or interested parties in a data base.