RWKAgency
Expert
Most experienced agents would disagree. A lead is someone who has shown interest. A name on a list is nothing more than a suspect who may or may not be interested.
You might call it semantics, but it does matter, especially if you are recruiting people with the promise of "Leads".
I can get get free lists all day long, even with filters. I can even run them against the DNC database for free. But they are not anymore a Lead than randomly finding someone in the phone book. They might be a more qualified Suspect vs. that random name in the phone book. But they have shown no interest yet in what I offer, therefor they are not a Lead.
It is definitely semantics as I have taught my folks that a lead is a name and a prospect is someone who has shown interest (like in baseball "the Mets have a hot prospect"). Either way, my folks are doing very well with the names we have been harvesting.