Direct answer
How do I find local business leads?
Decide what kind of business could plausibly buy what you sell, and where. Search that specific combination rather than a broad industry label, then qualify each result against the customer it serves, the products it already carries, and its price position. Keep the ones you can write a specific first sentence about, and contact those.
Free lead finder
Build the short list here
Describe the kind of business and the place. You get real businesses with addresses and a fit score, without signing in. Nothing is pre-filled: the specific description is the part that makes the list worth having, and only you know it.
Five leads free, no signup and no card. Sign in with Google to unlock contact details and draft outreach.
Name the business type, not the industry
"Retail" is not a search. "Independent gift shops in a walkable shopping district" is. The narrower description is easier to search, easier to judge, and easier to write a first message about, because it already contains a reason.
If you sell to more than one kind of business, run them as separate searches. A cafe and a corporate gifting company both buy packaged food, but nothing you write to one will land with the other.
Search a place, not a radius from nowhere
Location is the cheapest qualifier available. A business in the right neighbourhood already serves roughly the right customer, and a local reference in the first line proves you actually looked.
Start with one city or district you could visit or ship to easily. Widen only after the workflow produces replies, because a broken message sent further is still broken.
Qualify before you collect a contact
For each candidate, answer three questions: does it serve the customer who wants what I sell, does it already carry things like mine, and does its price position match. A no to any of them usually means no amount of good writing will help.
Write one sentence of evidence per business you keep. If you cannot write that sentence, the business does not belong on the list. This single rule removes most of the volume and almost none of the value.
Make the first message answerable
Open with the reason this specific business was chosen, then connect what you sell to the customer they already have. Ask one question that can be answered in a sentence.
Do not attach a catalogue, do not tell your founding story, and do not ask for a meeting before you have established relevance. The goal of a first message is a reply, not an order.
Where a tool helps and where it does not
Software is good at the mechanical parts: searching a business type in a place, pulling addresses and websites together, scoring rough fit, and drafting an opener you edit. That is what CarryLeads does, free for the first five leads and with no store or platform required.
Software is bad at judgement. It cannot know that a shop changed owners, that a buyer already declined you last year, or that a category is seasonal where you are selling. Verify before you send, and send it yourself.
Related resources
Frequently asked questions
Is it better to buy a lead list or build one?
Build one. A purchased list is sold to everyone in your category, is often stale, and tells you nothing about why a business is on it. Since the first message has to reference something specific to earn a reply, a list you cannot explain is a list you cannot write from.
How many leads should I start with?
Fewer than feels productive. Twenty businesses you can each describe in a sentence will outperform four hundred you cannot, because the work that produces replies is per-message and does not scale with list length.
How do I know if a business is worth contacting?
Ask whether it serves the customer who wants what you sell, whether it already carries comparable products, and whether its price position matches yours. If you cannot answer all three from its website or storefront, it is not qualified yet.
Do I need a Shopify store to use CarryLeads?
No, and for local searching a store is beside the point. The web app takes a business type and a place in the browser and returns five businesses free, with a Google sign-in unlocking contact details and an editable opener. The separate Shopify app exists for merchants who want the same search run against their own catalog and orders inside Shopify Admin.
Will a tool send the emails for me?
CarryLeads does not. It prepares an editable draft and stops there. Sending is yours, deliberately: you are accountable for the claim, the recipient, and the applicable outreach rules in your jurisdiction.