Shauna ThoresenCEO & Founder, Social Waves Media · CEO & Founder at Social Waves Media

Should Your Business Depend on Bought Leads? #insuranceagent

12 Jun 2026 · 2 min

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2:00

In this monologue, the speaker challenges the common analogy that buying leads is like a coffee shop purchasing beans, arguing that leads are not raw inventory but a customer‑acquisition mechanism. He explains that while businesses often source components from third parties, the most valuable companies own the aspects that give them a competitive edge—namely the relationship with their customers. Using examples such as Apple, Starbucks, and Nike, he illustrates how these brands do not manufacture every part of their product but they control the customer relationship. The speaker differentiates between “renting” acquisition (buying leads) and “owning” it (building in‑house lead generation through ads, email lists, and community building). He concedes that buying leads can be useful while learning to generate leads internally, but stresses that relying solely on purchased leads makes a business dependent on external sources. The core message is that insurance agents (and other businesses) should strive to own their customer‑acquisition process rather than depend entirely on bought leads.

Chapters

Every time I hear this analogy or argument for purchasing leads, I cringe. The coffee shop often buys its beans from someone else. Most businesses aren't entirely vertically integrated. Elements are often third-party supplied, and insurance is no different. It does make sense. If you owned a coffee shop, you would have to buy the coffee and buy all the ingredients and the cups you serve them in and pay your staff. Leads are your inventory. If you owned a restaurant, would you have to buy ingredients? The answer is yes. Like, hello, this is low-key weird to post. The coffee shop analogy or restaurant analogy only works if leads are your raw ingredients. They're not. Your leads are your customer acquisition mechanism. Those aren't the same thing. A better analogy would be saying coffee shop number 1 goes to Yelp and purchases customer information. They see them as leads and then they try to get those people to come into their shop while coffee shop number 2 posts on social media, learns how to run their own Facebook ads, builds an email list, builds up a community that that knows who they are and acquires their own customers. One owns their customer acquisition process and one of them rents it. Look, I'm not saying that nobody should ever buy leads ever, but I am saying, why wouldn't you want to also have the capability to generate them yourself? While you're learning how to generate them, you can still continue to purchase leads, but now you have options. And on top of that, you control the messaging and you start to actually build trust. What's funny to me about the first comment is, yeah, it's true that most businesses aren't perfectly vertically integrated, but the most valuable businesses, learn to own the things that matter the most and give them the competitive edge. Apple doesn't manufacture every component, but they own their customer relationship. Starbucks doesn't grow its own coffee beans, but it owns the customer relationship. Nike doesn't make every piece of material, but they own their customer relationship. The real question isn't should you buy leads? It's should you continue building a business that depends on someone else? And that's where the conversation gets interesting.