You can purchase business opportunity leads online from one of the many companies who specialize in selling leads. If your budget is rather limited, at least in the beginning of your MLM business, you can generate your own leads via word-of-mouth, using social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace or by creating blogs and writing articles about the services and/or products you are promoting. Twitter is a marketer’s dream and if you are already a member of Twitter then you surely have seen the thousands upon thousands of home based business opportunity announcements or ‘tweets’ that appear their twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The social networking websites are free to use and if you have a large following of people, you can advertise your opportunity there to generate leads.

Regardless if you are purchasing your leads or developing them yourself, you must pay close attention to the quality of the leads you are obtaining. The number one objective you should take when it comes to finding quality leads is that you should make the person who found your information believe that they have finally found the right place that has the answers they were looking for.

Considering the fact that hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. alone (if not more) are interested in finding a good home-based business opportunity to become involved in, you may benefit greatly by having a lead generation company do some of the leg work for you. Many of the top online lead companies have lists of people who are interested in home based business opportunities and by joining a company you can have access to their ‘real time’ leads. Paid business opportunity leads are being used by a countless number of people today and they have proved effective for most people.

Business opportunity seekers, of course, are individuals who are looking for ways to make money from home, or to expand their small business. If you think your company and products will be of service to such individuals, then you can benefit from contacting them. It’s a win-win situation: you win by selling them your services and/or products, and they win by using it all.

If you have a limited budget, you can try using bum marketing techniques to acquire opportunity seeker leads. This means you can write articles and submit them to directories, work on getting organic traffic from search engines, participate in social networking groups, submit your site and content to social bookmarking websites, create a blog, and so forth. Anything you can do to get word out about your company without resorting to spam is worth trying.

If you have enough money, you could try running a PPC campaign through Google AdWords. However, don’t go into this blindly; make sure you understand how PPC advertising works and which keywords you should target before starting a campaign. Going into Google AdWords without a specific strategy will only be a waste of your time and money.

Another option is to buy some leads. If you decide to do this, there are a few things you need to consider. The first is to make sure that the list consists solely of individuals who have indicated strong desires to pursue business and money-making opportunities online. They should have all recently purchased services or products from companies similar to your own. Check into sources that claim to sell qualified opportunity seeker leads of individuals who are interested in the types of products you promote.

It’s a sad fact: most of the lists you will be presented with will be useless. Even if the names and contact information really are of people interested in money making opportunities, the list could be sold to your competitors as well. For this reason, you need to do some research to find a company you can trust. Meanwhile, you should still try getting some leads on your own. Whether through bum marketing or buying lists of contacts, never become too dependent on one method of obtaining opportunity seeker leads.

Keep in mind that quality is more important than quantity in a lot of cases. One, strong lead can be more valuable than a hundred worthless ones. Don’t buy a bunch of leads unless you know that they are targeted.

It’s also important to only accept prospective associates and clients from opt-in sources. Some lead sellers only acquire contact information from spamming or other unethical means. As such, you need to be careful with whom you are dealing. Only accept emails, phone numbers, names, and addresses that were obtained through opt-ins. The leads also need to be targeted in order to be effective for your company.

Business opportunity leads are easier to acquire if you prove yourself to be an expert. There is a lot of competition out there, so you need to establish yourself as someone who knows what he or she is doing. Prove to others that you are an expert, and they will more than likely turn to you. You’ll have to give prospects the impression that they will benefit with you and your company and not your competitors. This can be achieved by running a good, content-rich website, blog, and/or newsletter.

In addition to making the best website as possible, you need to reach out to others through social networking and forums. Participate in discussions about your niche and offer tips to others. Leave insightful posts on message forums and comments on blogs. Always go back to provide follow-up information. If someone asks you any questions, answer them in a timely manner. Your goal should be to get them to WANT to know more about your business and what you have to offer!

Keep in mind that becoming an expert and generating worthwhile business opportunity leads can take a long time. Unless your article or ebook is so great that it goes viral overnight, you’ll need to wait awhile before your company’s name becomes synonymous with “success”.

Some of your competitors have undoubtedly been online longer than you have, so you need to give prospective leads and customers a reason to put their trust into you. You must make them believe that your company has all the solutions they could ever need.

Have you ever been inspired by another person? Inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes. Maybe you were inspired by a picture in a magazine to change your home décor, or your hair style. Maybe inspirations effect was much bigger than that – maybe you were inspired to have children, or to take off and move to another city. Let’s face it, we take what we like from others and we incorporate it into our lives in mostly subtle but occasionally drastic ways.

By thinking about your life you can teach other people and you can relate your experiences to them and to your network marketing business. Although everyone has a story, there is another part to telling it, voice. To develop your voice and to become comfortable communicating your thoughts and your personal experience- set aside time each day to learn about MLM, the industry itself and how it works.

Knowing how MLM operates and knowing how to use the terminology and lingo will help you to speak and write more easily. Documenting your journey through MLM and in creating your own MLM business using a blog or Twitter will help others who are breaking into MLM, such as your leads, to look up to you. After all, you are, hopefully, just a few steps and a few experiences ahead of them.

If these leads or visitors are able to gain something from your story, then they will continue to invest their time and their trust in you. Inexperience in the industry does not mean that you are not interesting to others, or that you’re story will not appeal to them.

Think of all the movies, books and sitcoms that start out with our main character in a new town, new job, new relationship! We as people are fascinated by change and beginning. It is exciting and scary, and fun but safe to indulge in change as an observer. Any weary business opportunity lead will start out this way.

If you want to learn more about the regulations out there to protect those on email and phone list then add these two sites to your bookmarks and be sure to check them for updates:

https://www.donotcall.gov/faq/faqbusiness.aspx – National Do Not Call Registry

http://www.ftc.gov/spam/ – FTC Can-Spam Directory

With this information under your belt you need to next get yourself ready for the barrage of questions that you’ll inevitable receive from anyone who is interested, or skeptical. There is a reason that those who have been in the biz the longest do the best with leads. Know your stuff! Take the training, listen to the calls and read the material before you start calling leads. This will prepare you handle all questions that your leads ask you.

Don’t take it personally! Many who are new to MLM and calling a business opportunity lead list for the first time are really thrown, or assume that they are doing something wrong when they get the inevitable “not interested” or “can’t talk now” remark. Use a little empathy here and think about the truth of the matter, maybe it’s the middle of dinner, kids to pick up and a hungry family, dog barking in the background …. You get the point.  If you can be compassionate and polite you might gain the opportunity to call back!

Use this scenario as a way to represent yourself and your business. Some of the best leads and most successful MLMers started off as “not interested right now”.

Using a little empathy and finding a common ground will help you to relationship build. Open the conversation up by asking a little about the weather, family, why they’re looking for a home based business! Your leads are people too not just stats and sales.

If the call goes well, and they will start to go well with experience, get to know how to close the call. You should be working with a script and an interview, start with this while working on relationship building. Gently suggest an appointment for a presentation, don’t push it, and be natural. Maybe this will just be a website tour – something that the lead can do from home without being on the phone at all!

Schedule a follow up call – when you speak next, try to remember something about them and their life – continue to build the relationship! Try to inspire them by talking a little bit about the positive changes it your life, your unique and compelling story.