Read This First

I came within a whisker of earning $5 million during the nine years I spent in the lead generation business prior to 2005. By then, the internet had already begun reshaping the industry—especially business opportunity leads.

As websites and social platforms took hold, online lead generation was positioned as the solution. And while it created scale, it also introduced a critical flaw: visibility was mistaken for intent.

The industry learned how to generate clicks, but not how to identify serious buyers.

The ability to reach more people came at the cost of reaching quality prospects.

Yes, we can market to people who just searched for something—but the actual numbers reveal the problem. In Canada, only about 720 people per month search for “business opportunity,” and roughly 8,100 search for “side hustle.”

Meanwhile, there are more than 10,000 people selling businesses. That works out to less than one search per seller.

That imbalance is what gave rise to the modern online advertising industry. With too much competition to rely on organic rankings—and only a handful of winners emerging from thousands of hopefuls—paid advertising became the default option.

But running ads isn’t the solution many believe it to be.

Take Facebook as an example. You can advertise to people who showed interest once, at some point in the past—but you have no way of knowing who is still looking, who has already bought, or who was never serious to begin with.

Interest is not the same as readiness, and it certainly isn’t a measure of quality.

The uncomfortable reality is this: the World Wide Web didn’t improve the lead generation business—it dismantled it. Online leads didn’t become better; they became cheaper, noisier, and far less reliable.

So what’s the alternative?

If the number of people you meet organically in public is too small to fuel real growth, and online advertising produces volume without quality, the options narrow quickly.

And that narrowing is exactly where the real solution begins.

There is, however, a third path—one that existed long before algorithms and quietly continued to work while online lead generation proved frustrating and largely ineffective.

It’s built on permission, context, and human interaction. Instead of guessing who might be interested, it begins with people we’ve already met and spoken with in real settings—at events such as business opportunity shows.

These leads routinely generate response rates north of 25%, while online-generated leads and ads typically struggle to reach 2%. But that difference alone doesn’t tell the full story.

Not only is the response rate dramatically higher, the conversion rate is higher as well. In other words, leads from people we’ve actually met don’t just respond more often—they produce more sales and more sign-ups.

If you’re a seller looking for more qualified people to speak with, take a moment to explore our page on sponsoring ListAMundo™.

If you’re evaluating a business opportunity, you may want to review our page on becoming a ListAMundo™ broker.

Either way—regardless of which path applies to you—there’s one thing you can expect: you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised by how different this approach really is.