In business, the term "sales leads" simply refers to list of people (together with all their important information like contact numbers, email addresses, etc.) whom a company considers to be prospective customers. These people have characteristics or demographics that make them a good fit for the products or services that a certain company is trying to market.

A big mistake that many businesses make is creating random sales leads, which do not lead to new business at all. In short, because of how poorly the sales leads are generated, businesses end up with a long list of people who are simply neither interested nor relevant to the business's offerings.

Sales leads are supposed to be one of the most effective ways to market an online business. They are supposed to be generated based on what the company believes potential customers are looking for in a product, or a service. In this competitive world today, leads are generated through advertising, telemarketing and referrals from other potential and current customers.

It is important that a business carefully plan what kind of market to target when generating these sales leads so as to not waste a lot of time contacting people who are not interested in patronizing what you have to offer. This would just result in an overhead expense that it is not relevant, and for businesses that has spent a lot of money on advertising, and for businesses that is new, this could mean lost time and effort without the desired results.