When you get into a business, you get all sorts of advice.  Some good and some not so good.  Some will work and help you build your business and some will have you wasting effort trying to build your business only to find that you have gotten nowhere fast.

To me buying leads is one of those wastes of effort.  Believe me I have tried it and the truth is I will have to put more effort into cultivating a purchased lead than I put into cultivating my own leads.  When you buy leads you are purchasing someone else' list, or worse yet a list of names of people who were duped into giving out their information.

First let me say that there is nothing illegal in purchasing lists, businesses have been doing it forever.  Don't believe me?  How many years have you been receiving junk mail?  How many times is that junk mail addressed to you and then you see the phrase "or current resident"?  That's because your name and address were obtained from a direct mail leads list.  Do you have everyone in the world offering you a 'pre-approved' Credit card?  Pre-Approved means your name was on a list.  So can we agree that it is not illegal?

Not Illegal but is it effective?  What do all of us do with junk mail?  Don't lie now.  You know you either directly file it in the trash can or stack it up in your mail collection spot until your mail collection spot is overflowing and then you file it in the trash can. 

What do you think people on that leads list is doing with all those e-mails your are sending them?  They don't know you from Adam, they never asked you to send them information so what makes you think that they are going to look at what you send them.  They are doing the same thing with your e-mails that they do with junk mail.  Filing it in the trash can by hitting the delete button or collecting it in their mail collection spot (Junk/Spam folder) until their collection spot gets full and then dumping the entire mess in the trash can.

Okay Bubba, I know maybe one or two will look but how much did you spend to get that one or two to look?  How much effort are you now going to have to put into getting that one or two interested? 

Doesn't it make more sense to collect your own interested leads?  These leads will truly be 'pre-qualified' especially if you use a double opt in system.  You know that the leads you are collecting are interested in what you have to offer.  You are not buying a list of email addresses collected from people trying to get 'free' points from some game, a  'gift card' from Walmart or some other free item through completing online offers. 

Think about it, which option is smarter:
100 leads who simply gave out their email address in an attempt to get something that they want or 100 leads that know what you offer and have an interest in it?