2 more hired and Sherri kicks it out!

Sherri did a great job for me today - 18 leads in 4 hours! She hit the bonus rate of $15/hr so my per-lead cost is $3.33. If anyone knows where they can get exclusive leads from mainly business owners for $3 a pop let me know. Leads are all about volume and there's no such thing as a qualified leads. The hunt for the "qualified" lead will leave you broke and frustrated. I like dealing with high volumes of telemarketed leads because:

*ROI is fantastic: $4 per lead close 1 out of 30 = $120 cost returning an average of $800
*You're busy all day with high volume which keeps your attitude up
*You only work with highly interested people and not get jerked around
*You don't have to battle some wad selling junk plans, discount plans like you do with shared leads. You can relax and take your time with clients without worrying about someone else trying to pull the carpet out from under you.

When you're dealing with low amount of leads you have to milk them for everything they're worth. That's a frustrating day. Also, do NOT hire a telemarketing service!!! You have little to no control over quality. My marketers work for me. I dictate quality and set the parameters.

I also hired two more marketers today - Maggie and Laurel who will both start on Monday. I'm looking for 30 leads a day and close 1 out of 30. That means I call 30 people and only work with people who highly regard my services. All the "I'm busy now so call me back late next week" people get kicked to the curb. They get Constant Contact follow-ups (automatic emails.)

30 leads a day X 5 days = 150
$4 per lead X 150 = $600
Average AV is $3,500 X 25% commish = $875
$875 X 5 deals = $4,375 - $600 = $3,775 per week net

I could close 3 deals out of 150 leads and still net $2,025 per week.

Hiring telemarketers

Ok, the title of this is starting an agency with $200. Actually, as far as starting money it's less then that. My only costs so far have been $9.95 on http://goleads.com $14.95 on http://ringcentral.com (for my toll free number) $19.95 for http://efax.com (I have efax professional with a toll free number) and that's it - just $44.85.

Now it's time to take the money I've made from telemarketing and farm it out. For an agent, I would highly suggest just making calls yourself. But I'm trying to start an agency so I won't have 3 to 4 hours a day to telemarket. I hired Sherri yesterday and she downloaded Goleads that I paid for - another $9.95. All she's gonna do is call small business owners, say there's new plans available from the top carriers and ask if they want to details emailed to them. I'll sort it out on my end. I'm paying $12/hr flat plus $15/hr for 4 leads or more per hour. The lowest amount I've generated per hour with a zero qualification script is 6. I'm also hiring 2 more marketers today.

Still tracking

Everything's on course and it's exciting to see this all slowly coming together. I touched on this briefly before but the end result of this is a local agency designed for new agents. Newly licensed agents really have no place to start. A very soft touch script: "....would just like you to see the newest rates and plans" works fine. It generates a high amount of interest and qualifying them on the 2nd call takes 10 seconds and is very easy.

Right now I'm putting together a state-of-the-art training website. It's not instead of training, but as a supplement. All of my hiring and training is going to be done in person. However, new agents need to place to go to study. It's all going to be video-based - very little text. I'll have videos that go over all the plans, underwriting and videos on marketing and closing.

I'm designing my agency to be unique. I've been in sales for a long time and I'm taking bits and pieces of former companies I've worked with. Here are some specifics:

*Everyone will be under my agency for Assurant, Golden Rule and World. However, they will be independent and free to write for any other company. As my agency does more production I can qualify for Aetna and Blue Cross GA contracts.

*Bonuses, contests, competitions for fun and excitement.

*Top commissions to entry-level agents. When new agents make money everyone wins. When GAs try to stroke new agents no one makes money. Agents eventually wise up and come to know the commission structure anyway. If they feel they've been stroked you lose respect. I don't want a "turn it and burn it" outfit. I want agents with me for their entire tenure in insurance. If some agents want to manage and have their own "teams" I'll make that available.

*For new agents meeting are daily. I have not been involved with any sales organization that didn't have daily meetings. After training is over, meetings are once a week. However, I want to have lunch meetings where everyone meets at a restaurant. I think the cost will be negligible; even 20 agents a $15 a pop is only $300.

*Training and this is a pet peeve of mine. I received more training to sell cars and home improvements then health insurance. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't for GAs. You can put a lot of time and effort into training and almost no business gets written. Because of that most GAs ends up saying "screw it - here's the brochures now go write business." Now you need to hire hordes of agents to get a few deals and the very few agents who are writing don't know their ass from a hole in the wall.

*I'm going to be heavy-handed. I know this will probably stir some controversy but I take paying bills seriously. You either have the work ethic and personality to do this or you don't. I've seen agents make nothing or close to nothing for months while being strung along by their "managers" who are just looking for 100 people to each write a deal. I will not allow that. I'll hold their feet to the fire for the first few weeks and if they don't have what it takes it's time to part ways.

I've seen new car salesmen toasted on the 1st day. The manager will ask how many "ups" they took. The newbie says "Ummm, none." Manager says "So you've walked around the floor for 8 hours and haven't greeted anyone?" Newbie: "Ummm, no." Manager; "We'll it's been nice working with you." Do not waste time on people devoid of a work ethic. They drag you and the entire organization down. These are also the same knuckleheads to try to neg everyone out. They also love to get around other newbies: "Man....this really sucks doesn't it." Gone.

Here's my take on training. When training is lacking one of two messages are sent:

1) That is a joke and just get the damned deal.
2) No one makes it so why should I put any effort into this.

My training is going to be every day for two weeks, 4 hours a day. For the 1st 3 hours it's telemarketing to generate leads. Then a one hour break. Then it's 4 hours of training. The bottom line is the failure rate in this business is high enough already. If you want to all but guaranteed failure then don't train.

Starting to get into gear

I'm designing the next phase of this which is taking on some new agents. Can't very well start mass marketing without agents to handle leads, plus part of my new plan is to create an agency that takes on entry-level agents without screwing them. I don't see any places for newly licensed agent to start in health insurance field. Captive outfits like UGA or UA are horrible and going independent from the start is almost guaranteed failure. I want to hire new agents on W-2 status with a modest base pay and physical office - at bare minimum a draw against commish.

I telemarket my own leads and have learned how to qualify but today I designed a script so a new agent can survive cold-calling and generate enough interest so it doesn't "suck." My new script is simple:

"Hi, my name is John with the Health Solutions Agency. The reason I'm calling is there are new major medical health plans in Maryland and you can see now the rates and plan details right online. If you have individual or family coverage I'd like to send you an email with the site links so you can review everything when you have time."

After I get their email I tell them that I'll follow up with them later in the week to answer any questions they have.

This generates about 10 leads per hour which is a lot of action. Again, no qualification but that'll come with the follow up. But I'm a firm believer that new agents should hit the phones all day and not spend money while trying to get off the ground. I actually generated 10 leads just in my last 45 minutes of calls with that script.

I'll follow through with this for the rest of the week to see how the math works out.