Flyers

When I first got into this biz in 2003 placing flyers, ie: B to B was my main source of business. I didn't have a website, didn't even know Goleads existed for telemarketing and also didn't know about internet leads. For some reason UGA (Mega Life) didn't want their newer agents purchasing shared leads. I've attached a link to my flyer at the end of this post.

If you're a new agent you absolutely need to generate your own leads. The most effective choice is telemarketing however putting out flyers can be a good supplement if you simply need a break from making calls or it can be your main source of lead generation if you live in an area with a large business population.

Flyer placing for weenies:
Put on jeans and a t-shirt, walk into a business and say "I'd just like to leave you with this flyer, have a nice day." They pull 2% and you can place 40 an hour. Hitting small office buildings is great - stay away from large ones with security.

2 hours a day is 400 per week which is 8 leads and absolutely a deal - if not two. Closing percentage is very high. The problem with this method is you need to stick to it. The 2% return is not immediate and only realized after a lot of flyers are placed.

This can also be a great supplement to shared leads. You might only be getting 20 or so leads per week which means you're only working 2 to 3 hours a day. When you're done calling all of your prospects go out and place some flyers. The question is not "what will the return be?" - the question is "what will the return be if I don't place them, don't make calls and just sit in my office?

Flyer placing for those with guts:
This is direct engagement. Walk into a business and ask for the owner. If the owner's in simply introduce yourself, hand them the flyer, state what you do, and ask if they would be interested in seeing if they can lower their rate. This obviously results in a lot more deals. Dress business casual - you don't need a tie but absolutely no jeans.

One of my independent friends in 2004 answered and ad to work for United Healthcare - $35K base, health, dental, 401K and take a wild guess at the job details; B to B all day.

My flyer:
http://rapidshare.com/files/57456703/Walk_and_Talk_flyer5.doc.html
or here:
http://www.savefile.com/files/1073486

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My take on health care reform

I still get a fair amount of emails talking about the upcoming changes to health insurance so here's my take:

*I believe there will be significant changes to health care five years from now. Those changes, however, will not be a gov't run single payer system. How do I know that? Even Hillary isn't dumb enough to have a gov't run platform. Her latest plan, in her words, is "reality based" - meaning she knows it's impossible to get a bill passed for a Canadian-like or UK-like system. As it stands right now it looks like Hillary vs Giuliani and although I'm a Republican I think Hillary would clean his clock. I'm a realist. If Hillary gets in she will not rest until health care reform happens.

*Most likely we'll have employer-mandated coverage - meaning employers will simply have to cover all of their employees if they have a business over a certain size.

*Individual coverage will be available on the market like it is now, but will be guaranteed issue and costs will be offset by the gov't and probably a 5% tax increase.

*Commissions will likely fall - probably the 5% to 10% range which will basically put most independent agents out of business. That being said, it certainly won't put top health agents under. They will simply ramp up business and focus more on cross-selling life and DI. It will still be possible to make six figs selling individual health.

My take? If you're struggling now as an independent most likely you'll be out of business 5+ years from now. Here's my time line:

2008 - elections
2009 - new prez sworn in. Doesn't matter who - all off them want health reform
2010 - legislation introduced and passed for health care reform
2011 - health insurance companies submit their rates for GI plans - implementation starts
2012 - new changes fully implemented

Again, I see it in five years from concept to implementation. Whether or not I'm correct, I don't think it would be a fantastic long-term plan to ignore the potential changes. If I were you, I'd be lining up a plan B now.

This is what I'm doing. I'm going for a strong community presence and basically making a lot of money over the next several years. If changes happen the way I think they will, I'd like to already be established in the community.

The worst case scenario is I'm dead wrong, years from now we have a single payer gov't run system and we're all basically out of business selling health insurance. However, I wouldn't mind having a lot of money floating around in the bank if that happens and not in a position where I need immediate pay.

Still need to break out of the comfort zone

Being my family's sole income source, I reached a comfort level a while ago based on simply what I need to make the pay the bills and have some left over for fun. It's odd how once I hit that level I slack off.

What I've accomplished over the last 2 months is simply trading cold-calling and paying telemarketers for generating my own business locally. I'm still making about the exact same amount but now but it's local marketing and referrals. I've whittled the rest of my day away on "research" for marketing ideas and costs. I can do all the marketing research I want but without the extra cash it's a pipe dream.

I'm at a stale mate. Yes, I'm making enough to live and also generating my own local business but not making enough to really launch into advertising or prep for a store location next year. What I need to be doing over the next few months is double up.

I need to generate local business like I've been doing - go to my chamber events, local marketing groups, referrals and handle leads coming in through my website but I also need to hit the phones myself and call Goleads an hour or two a day to bring in those extra two deals per week I need to expand on advertising.

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Final note for the day

My son at soccer practice yesterday. This is the kind of stuff I really enjoy!

And the day keeps getting better

I've been having a great day on the phones setting appointments and now just got another deal I put in yesterday issued. This was allergies, on daily Singulair and cold-weather induced asthma - needs Albuterol during the winter months. Aetna's out of the range in the 1st place, then add a 25% rate increase, GR would rider out allergies, asthma and the meds - not an option - and BCSC and Coventry would decline.

Assurant to the rescue yet again with a condition specific deductible. No rate ups, no riders, all meds covered, all treatment covered and re-priced and only an additional $1,500 for any major event. Oh, and approved in a day.

More Assurant insanity

Just crazy - app I put in yesterday, three meds between husband/wife w/previous surgery already approved and active. I build the rate increases into the quote so it went to counter-offer then active. When you use EASE and note conditions like HBP the online form forces agents to put in every last detail about the condition. Because of that there's never any missing info, no reason to call clients, no reason for an APS. This is active and they already printed out their cards. It's simply an embarrassment that other companies don't have this type of system.

Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Little Caesars

The lesson here for me is not to limit myself. Pizza Hut is the number 1 pizza franchise in MD followed by Dominoes and Little Caesars bringing up the rear.

Pizza Hut: Delivers, can also pick up and also eat in their restaurant for a wider menu.

Dominoes: Delivers, can pick up but no capacity to sit in and eat.

Little Ceasars: Doesn't deliver, can't eat in, pick-up only.

The lesson is obvious; don't limit the ways you do business. We have "Little Ceasars" agents who only use one business model; they will only do business by phone or only do business in person. They are unwilling to mix two and leave a lot of business on the table.

We have "Dominoes" agents. They will do phones sales but also meet with clients, however they have no office location. Clients cannot come in, sit down and talk about a varity of insurance products and build a community presence.

Then we have the "Pizza Hut" agents. These are your State Farm, Nationwide and Allstate agents - also agency owners who have physical locations. They can sell online, meeting with clients but also have the ability to be known in their area and much more opportunity for cross-selling.

Basically, I've run Little Caesars where all clients had to come to me; ie - all phone sales. I'm running Dominoes now where they can come to be or I come to them - much more money running a Dominoes. Now it's off to the Pizza Hut concept.

It's no accident that Little Caesers in MD comes in dead last for pizza franchises. Anytime you limit the ways you do busienss you're always going to make far less.

Well, I guessed right

Woke up this morning, punched into my Adwords and they disabled all of my keywords saying I either have to improve the "quality" - meaning I had to add "health insurance" to my keywords or bump my bid to $5 per click. No dice. I don't want to generate internet leads.

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The question...

So where do you put a 55 year old husband, HBP on Norvacs, 55 year old wife 5.6 180 pounds HBP on Lotrel and Benicar - hospitalized for a week with a urinary tract infection in 2003, currently has Mega, doesn't want anything excluded, owns a construction biz and horse farm and has money all over the place and wants everyone covered while being under $400 a month?

You guessed it.

Interesting deal. She was happy to be under $1,000 yesterday until I sent her the Assurant alt. quote chart that listed all the rates. Then she wanted the $10,000 deductible. I thought that was kinda high and she comes back with "listen, we could pay a $20,000 or even $50,000 bill without a problem. We just want cataclysmic coverage but we also want all of our current conditions covered." Done. Very savvy lady - knows the deductible really doesn't matter, only what the plan actually covers.

Interesting to note that I brought up how she had a GR plan in the past; 180 pounds, 2 HBP meds, UTI hospitalization? She told me her "agent" (have to use the term loosely) told her he'd "help her out" and listed her weight at 150, and only noted 1 HBP med. What a guy!

Google busted me

Ok, I got caught. A few posts down you'll see I ran local town searches on Google and noticed hardly anyone advertised so I figured I'd get some free or cheap exposure - bid 10 cents a click just to get my ad placed. Well, give it to Google to be just a tad smarter than me:-)

Two days ago they made my keywords inactive and made me bump most to 50 cent minimum bids. Then tragedy - I started getting some clicks and leads. I actually got 5 leads yesterday and Google only charged me 36 cents per click. Well...they certainly weren't gonna let me get away with that.

Obviously their mega super-brain computer realized I'm advertising for health insurance. For that one keyword I got just a few clicks, (I have 30 different keyword searches) made it inactive and now want $5.00 per click! Basically, they charged me 36 cents per click for people clicking to get health quotes when their system knows they're getting $5.00+ per click from people advertising health insurance.

I emailed them yesterday and actually get a pretty prompt response; they want what I'm selling to be part of my keywords - ie; I need to put "health insurance" in my keywords. Oddly they've only targeted just that one city search and the rest of my campaign is fine.....for now. I'm guessing that within a few days Google will be demanding $5.00 per click for all of them, which is the going rate for "health insurance" keyword search. Oh well, I tried to be sneaky.

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What a nightmare

I just got a fantastic referal - lady owns a horse farm about 2 hours from me - wouldn't matter since the 1st words out of her mouth, even though I was referred, was "I don't want anyone coming over."

Ok, she's 55, husband 55 and son 23 but a college student. Wife w/HBP, husband w/HBP, daughter with allergies. Not really a biggie and they want to be under $1,000 a month. Wow, nice dealing with people who have money.

What do they have now? You guessed it - Mega Life. Obviously we don't need to talk about what happened there. Then she says "And absolutely no Golden Rule!" What happened there? An agent sold her a plan, everything was ridered and she claims she knew nothing about it. Meds for her, her husband and daughter, doctor visits, testing - denied. She fliped out saying agent never said anything about riders. GR told her to look in her policy - there they were.

Before that? Aetna nightmare. She had them for a few months - same story - no coverage for anything pre-ex and Aetna said she didn't have prior coverage that qualied since they had a break in previous coverage. This lady can't win - and can't find an agent to simply tell her the truth; GR rates are great - no pre-ex will be covered, Mega sucks, Aetna is horribly expensive and no pre-ex covered for 12 months.

And you guessed it - off to an Assurant HSA. Well under their price range and all meds, doctor visits and treatment of any pre-ex condition will count towards the deductible and more importantly, be re-priced. Nice deal.

For what it's worth we covered the rate difference between GR and Assurant's HSAs. What you'll find it people who aren't dead broke don't care - they want coverage for pre-ex conditons. GR was coming in over $200 a month cheaper. Her words, verbatim "I couldn't care less. I want everything covered."

Know all the options in your state

This is not all about commissions. Yes, I obviously want to make money like everyone else but what keeps me in this line of business is being able to help other people. If you're a new agent you should be doing meticulous research on everything that's available to your prospects. Here are MD examples:

MCHIP: http://www.dhr.state.md.us/how/medical/mchip.htm
Free health care for children under 19 and all pregnant women who fall into certain income guidelines. I get those leads - female 32 with two kids but instead of recommending a family of three plan, I see if she qualifies for MCHIP. If so, her kids get free healthcare and maybe she only needs a plan for herself.

Pharmacy Assistance: http://www.dhr.state.md.us/how/medical/mpap.htm
Provides free or discounted medication to people who make too much money to qualify for state assistance.

County health department: http://www.aahealth.org/index.asp
Free health screenings, free shots/immunizations for children and "one stop shopping" to see if you qualify to any type of assistance program.

Local hospital: http://www.aahs.org/
Offers a myriad of free screenings; blood pressure, prostate, breast exams, etc... on top of a ton of free programs and educational classes. It's also the place to contact if you don't have any insurance, don't qualify to any type of assistance but need some type of testing or even surgery. Most people don't know that in many cases you can negotiate the cost of some services and the hospital will absolutely let you know about any program available to help offset the medical costs.

State health department: http://www.dhmh.state.md.us/
The "one stop shopping" website for every program known to man for health in Maryland.

This is the kind of information I like to provide my clients who are lower income. One of the questions most agents don't ask their prospects is "what's your family income?" I do indeed prep that question by letting them know they are under no obligation to tell me how much they make, but most times I can guess and say "by the way, since you're 28 years old with two kids if you make under "X" amount per year you could qualify for A, B, and C programs.

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You emailed - I respond

I get a fair amount of emails from this blog which I appreciate and most have a common question. Here are my answers:

You could just continue telemarketing without all this added effort
Not really. I'm meeting with my clients and I'm not gonna drive hours. With the available number of prospects within a reasonable driving distance I have 3 or 4 months of calls before the list is burnt. I'm also moving away from marketing tactics that most people simply hate. Internet lead leads hate getting called by 4 agents and most small biz owners hate getting telemarketed. To be an asset to the community people need to seek out my services.

You're going through all this effort then you'll go under when universal healthcare happens
I don't run my business on what might or might not happen years from now. Worst case scenario? Elections in '08, new prez in '09, at least a full year to draft legislation and two more years to implement. Nothing's happening for at least five years. Doubtful it'll be single-payor system anyway. More likely it'll use private insurance companies and mirror what Mass. has implemented.

All you sell is Assurant
I wrote two Assurant, one Coventry, one Aetna and one Blue Cross last week. All I talk about is Assurant since they're exciting to me. Nothing exciting about writing Blue Cross and getting $17.50 five months from now. Doesn't mean I don't sell 'em. I have a deal going today and it's Aetna. Nothing too exciting about 15% and I see my 1st commish in 3 months. I've also written 4 state plans in the past 3 weeks for $100 flat per app. Most agents don't spend 5 seconds on state plan clients.

I like your idea, but it won't work
You mean you've tried a complete local focus with sponsorships, ads through several media outlets, member of the chamber of commerce, booking table/booth space at all local events and basically getting your business name everywhere and it didn't work? Or you have never tried something like that and are guessing.

More than likely you, like me, ran one or two ads - they didn't pull well and you said "this doesn't work." Or you joined one network group like BNI and got the occasional deal and said "well this doesn't work either." For my plan to work it needs a combination of everything. A very good friend of mine got sponsored to join the rotary club. That's it - just joined that club at $110 a month. He has yet to gain a single client.

My local State Farm agent is in all local publications. He's also a chamber member, a member of my local community group and he has billboard on the major drag. I'm sure he does much more marketing. I would guess that's co-op money he splits with State Farm but again, I've run the numbers and they work out.

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I'm seeing the light

I'm very impressed with the direction this is going. I put in 5 deals last week with no cold-calling at all. Not only that but I have 6 appointments already set up for this week, four of which are from my community business group.

In the past I've avoided business groups and community activity because I didn't want to be "that guy." We all know "that guy" - he's the one you can't hold a conversation with without being pitched. He's a follower of the "three foot rule" which means anyone within three feet of you gets pitched. If you're in the grocery line "that guy" is gonna strike up some lame conversation then whip out his business card. I hate that guy.

But I don't have to turn into that wad. Business networking groups are just that and it's expected. I can be at community events and still not have to turn to the lady behind me in the grocery store and say "some weather, huh!" Case in point was my son's B-day party yesterday. Several parents came with their kids and decided to say. For over 2 hours we all talked and you couldn't have paid me to mention I sell health insurance. Basically, learn to turn it off. Now, there are people who would say I missed potential opportunity by not handing out my cards to the parents at my son's party. They are dildos and people will hate to be around you if you turn into one of those losers.

Instead - how 'bout this; how 'bout being so well known in the area that the lady in line behind you says "aren't you the guy who does health insurance? Can I have a card?" Now - that's what I'm talking about.

My goal (as pictured) next year is a store-front retail location. I've run the numbers and it works out. I mean, common...I did 5 deals last week, will absolutely do 5 this week, have spent a grand total of $70 so far ($25 on banner ads, $5 for Adwords and $35 to join my local chamber) and it's a deal a day. I haven't even attended my 1st chamber event - that's next week. I also haven't done a single community event yet.

The truth is simple; health insurance is an extremely high-demand insurance product but most people simply stick with what they have because they don't know who to contact. Most business owners wouldn't be caught dead typing in their personal info into a website, which is why I'm not concentrating on generating internet leads. My banner ad and Adwords campaign are merely out there for exposure. I really could care less if some 22 year old clicks my banner - I just want people to get used to seeing my name.

I think the market potential is huge. And I'm not talking about 10 or 15 deals a week "huge." I'm talking about over 100 deals a week and needing to hire agents on salary+ to handle the business.

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