Getting together for webinars!

If there's enough basic interest I'm thinking of getting agents together for webinars. It would be a time when a group of us can get together and basically shoot the shit about anything health insurance related; talk about marketing, selling and basically be able to talk to other agents about what's working or not working.

I'd be using Vyew and there's a number to dial in so everyone can chat and view marketing, sales, scripts and other cool stuff on the webinar.

I think they should be short - no longer than 30 minutes and maybe only once a week unless there's interest to have them more often.

These would only be for licensed agents since we'll be going over marketing, selling, closing, etc...we obviously don't want consumers prying in - sorry consumers.

Because of the right coast/left coast time differences, east cost mornings would be out so I'm thinking a great time would be around 1pm EST. The Californians are already up and about and the east-coasters still have time left in the day.

You can use these webinars as kinda of a "get off your ass" kick in the butt and we can all pick up valuable tips.

So let's set this up for Monday the 28th at 1PM EST.

If you want to participate you'll have to email me. Then I'll shoot you out the invite link to the webinar and the number to call in on. Again, you must be a licensed agent. Email me at info@marylandquotes.com

(If I smell that you're a consumer be prepared to prove you're an agent:-)

Webinar selling

Well let's get this out of the way; the best was to sign people up, especially if you're new, is to go see 'em. However, that's not always possible and not everyone's going to want to meet with you nor should you have to with everyone.

If you have a single prospect displaying very high interest and they qualify I really don't see the need to hop in your car.

I use Webinars for most of my online selling. There's a slew of companies offering webinar services but I use Vyew because it's free and has all the features I need. Most other services charge around $50 a month.

Why webinars?

• It has a "wow" or "cool" factor to it. Most people have never seen a webinar and they are indeed pretty cool - people will be impressed

• It's more engaging for people to look at something rather then just listen to some boring agent spout off about plans and rates

• You control the presentation - you know you're both looking at the same thing. This isn't the case when you take them to your quote page and you're talking about Copay Select while they're looking at Plan 100.
  

• Don't have to fumble with what to day. A lot of newer agents struggle with what they should be talking about. You need to talk about your services, the plan and the rate. With webinars all the info's right in front of you and all you have to do is highlight key points in the brochure

• The brochures are fantastic sales tools but without webinars they're difficult to go over. You might be on page 2 and you're client's probably looking at page 5. This allows you to go over the brochure and even highlight key benefits.
  

• Rates are last - and rates should be last. You cannot sell any plan without building value. Most presentations are backwards - agents show rates first and go over the plan benefits last. This leads to "selling by rate" instead of "selling by value." With my webinars I go over my services first, then the company, then the plan THEN then rates.
  

• You can click to share your desktop - basically it's like your client is standing behind you looking at your screen. You can pull up quoting software and they can watch as you do the online app.
  

Downsides

View uses Adobe Flash - which almost everyone has. But if you have a client running Windows on an old 386 it's gonna be a problem. If you're computer or internet connection is slow it'll be tedious to go from one page to the next and your client will get frustrated.

But again, Vyew is free - http://vyew.com - sign up and have at it.

An offer grom Gary - Marketing Campaign Solutions

A lot of emails from Gary's CRM, most them them asking me about pricing and basically how it works. I just talked to Gary and asked if he'd be willing to give any of my readers some type of break and he said yes.
So here's the offer from Gary:

$349 per month with no long-term commitment (normally $449) $149 set-up fee waived 1 week free trial
You must state that you read about this offer on my blog and it's only for a limited time. Gary didn't pin it down and say for exactly how long but that's up to him - not too long.

Call Gary at 912-944-2540 or email him at garyprado@gmail.com

I think that's an outstanding offer. It's everyone helping everyone - I get a discount and you get a discount and all is fair in the world. If I wasn't blown away with this I'd be talking about how much of a waste of time this is. In fact, I - like many others - hung back in the shadows after knowing about it and just recently decided to give it a try. The results are the results - it rocks.

I'm on day three using this and it has changed my entire marketing system. Results are indeed results and I'm two deals now submitted after 4 1/2 hours of calls. As you all know, most of us calls leads for 2 hours a day and don't put in 2 deals.

Ok - exactly how does this work and what are the features?

• You download the CRM - pictured - onto your computer. You can buy data from MCS or import you own data

• You go into "settings" and label your own buttons. This way you can keep track of leads, not interested, call backs, have group, etc....

• You set how many number you want it to dial at a time - 3, 2 or 1. I recommend 3 numbers at a time - it's actually very easy to manage and you get maximum results

• You pick up your office phone and call into the server. You do not call through your computer. This a dedicated line and the quality is crystal clear

• You enter in your password and click "Start Call Session" - then it starts dialing numbers until it someone picks up or it hits a machine. If it hits a machine you click AM-LM to leave a message you record. You simply record your own message when you call into the server. It will continue to dial the other two numbers while your message is being left.
  

• When someone answers, as you can see from the pic, it displays "answer." If you look at the pic you'll see this real example of Donna with "answer" next to it but if you look at the data the top you'll see all of Donna's info. This is instantaneous. Even before she says "hello" I see all her info. So after she says "hello" I'm already prepped to say "Is this Donna Smith?"
  

• While I'm on with Donna all other calling stops. After I'm done talking to her calling will resume after I click the appropriate button; lead, not interested, etc...

• On the top right you'll see "email." I can type in Donna's email and shoot her out an email I design right from the CRM.
  

• Lower right you'll see you can pause dialing or stop the calling session.
  

• In the middle right you'll see a "lead sheet" tab. You can type in all relevant lead info and save it.
  

• When you're done with your session you can run reports and export your leads.
  

If you're currently making calls it's not what this costs - it's what it costs not to have. I've done my own telemarketing and it's 40 dials per hour and I can tell you right now I've run the math and it's ugly for hand-dialing:

I have 2 deals closed for 4 1/2 hours. It's 3 to 1 - meaning this triples my results. So those same two deals would have taken 13+ hours to generate. Most of us can handle calling 2 hours a day - possible three so that's an entire week's worth of calls to put in 2 apps.

Here - it's 2 hours a day of calls to put in 5 apps. So you need to figure out what your commission is on an extra 3 apps per week and see if $349 a month is worth it. It's obvious.

From a personal note - I don't find myself having to get psyched to do this like when I hand-dialed. Each time you hand-dial you have to "psych" yourself to make the next call. I really like dialing one number, leaning back in my chair and simply being connected with people.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do besides this. If I can plug out a deal a day from a few hours of calls - heck, what else would I possible do?

A deal from yesterday and more calls

I'm officially addicted to this. It's been a long time since I've really enjoyed any marketing method but this is enjoyable. Whatever used to suck about making calls, this solves it.

Put in a deal from yesterday's calls. Healthy family paying $1,200 on Cobra and they simply didn't know any better. The wife wanted an infertility benefit and after grilling her it turns out she had an easy birth with her last child but simply wants the benefit. No problem - we wrote up Coventry.

$1,000 deductible for $680 a month for $8,160 in volume. I have two other people from yesterday's calls who are still highly interested so I'll see how that plays out. But one deal for 2 hours of calling is just fine by me.

More calls today:

149 minutes
459 dials 4 rock solid leads plus a call-back from a message = 5 DNC 184 is simply my way of marking anyone I don't want called back when I reset the data. That includes a lot of people who answered but they were larger businesses with group coverage.

I'm also only dealing with the owner. If the owner's not available I'm onto the next call. That's why I have such a high amount of dials today - I was 10 seconds with people who current have group and off the phone immediately unless it was a small business. I got a lot of doctor's offices, law firms and churches today and have to remember to scrub them out of my next set of data.

I only counted a "lead" today as someone I completely qualified head to toe; health, has a current plan, can and wants to save money.

Basically, if you paid for 40 leads these would be the 5 you're really impressed with. I'm just not gonna spend my days following up with people I can't help or people who really don't want to switch from what they have. Doesn't mean I'm gonna close all of 'em, but I'll take 1 out of 5 over 1 out of 20 any day.

So again, 2/12 hours of call today for 459 dials which would have taken me 11 1/2 hours to call manually dialing.

A few people have emailed me about my script. It's not much of a script:

"....new health plans are available from the top carriers like Blue Cross, United Healthcare and Aetna and I'm offering free quotes. If you have an individual plan you could save a significant amount of money. Do you current have a group or individual plan?"

If they say "group" I ask if they have employees on the plan. If yes it's over unless they continue the conversation.

If they say they have their own plan that's my potential lead. I say "then I'd really like to send you the new plans and rates - all I need is your home zip code and age."

Obviously we're dead if they say "just send me the info." I'll shoot 'em out info but won't count it as a lead. If they give me their zip and age I simply start a conversation about their current plan and what they'd like to change. If they say "well...I'm pretty happy with it but you can send me what you have" then we're done. Again - shoot 'em info, won't count it as a lead.

For the people who start to go on and on about their rate or plan THAT'S what I'm counting as a lead.

Gonna mess with my telemarketing system today

I've been used to hand dialing and gotten into a habit of getting the info I need and ended the call with "give me time to call you back tomorrow...." I had to get off the phone and back to dialing to generate more leads. You really can't afford to waste 20 minutes with someone who you "think" is highly interested, then that goes nowhere and your hour's shot.

Today, however, I'm gonna shoot the shit with interested people more and get more rapport going. I can pause the dialer and go off an a tangent with people which is what I really enjoy doing.

When you start looking at my lead results on seeing 2 to maybe 4 leads an hour you might think "this is no big deal - anyone can generate that many leads." But I'm guessing my closing ratio on these is gonna be around 1 out of 6 instead of the typical 1 out of 15 or even 1 out of 20 when you buy leads. When you're making calls yourself you're certainly not gonna fool yourself into thinking someone with low interest is actually a lead.

I'm pretty sure I have at least a deal out of yesterday with 113 minutes on the phone. I'd be impressed if that comes true. I was guessing more like 4 hrs a day would be one deal per day which is what I'm after.

My goal for this is $20,000 for the week and I'm interested to see how many hours on Gary's CRM it'll take for me to hit that number.

Wrapped up the calling

I wanted 3 hours today but got just under 2 in. My son had a half day - out at 1pm and my wife was working so I had to play Mr. Mom.

Here's the results:

113 minutes of calls
247 calls made
8 leads
55 messages left

3 additional leads from message call-backs. Those are strong as death. I'm very impressed with 3 call-backs out of 55 messages. The last on was a guy on Cobra for $1,200 a month, family plan and a few pre-ex conditions but nothing big, easy to underwrite.

I've never been able to leave messages before. You can do so manually dialing if you want but you'll have to put in more time calling to make up for it.

Back to what I'm calling a "lead." I'm taking advantage of the sheer number of people I'm talking to and only counting a "lead" as someone with high interest - not just someone who wants to review some plans and rates.

The bottom line again is 247 calls made in 113 minutes when manually dialing 40 an hour would have taken me 6 hours. I'm good for 2 hours of calls per day so I did 3 days of calling in 2 hours. Simply incredible.

Very nice!

Ok, 1st time I've ever made calls myself from the MCS (Marketing Campaign Solutions) CRM . It was pretty simple to configure - I labeled the buttons to match what I'm doing (I'm actually going to re-label some for the next round to simplify the results,) recorded my voice mail message and configured the email settings so I could shoot out emails from the CRM.

Very very cool - had it banging away at 3 dials at a time and it was very easy and almost fun to manage. You can see the stats above however again, I'll be simplifying the stats for the next round of calling:

Dials - 109
Lead - 4
Messages left - 20
Owner not in - 14 (phone was answered by gatekeeper)
DNC - 2 is not "do not call again" but simply wrong numbers
Not interested - 11 (see rest of post)
Got a call back from a message I left - lady has Mega and wants a quote

So a total of 5 leads.

So again, if you're manually dialing 40 numbers per hour this represents almost three hours of work which I did in 52 minutes.

I also had a different definition of a lead since I was on the phone with so many people. Normally when I telemarketed I was just out to sending owners info on the new plans. Then I'd follow up and ascertain interest - but mentally it had to be that way for me since "qualified" leads are few are far between when manually dialing and it's depressing.

Many of those 11 "not interested" leads would have been counted as leads. But after they said "sure, send the info" I got into some basic qualification. That's when I told most of them they're simply better off with what they have.

I found a huge psychological factor with the auto-dialer. When manually dialing you have to "psych" yourself before every single call. But when this I made one call then literally lean back in my chair (feet on the desk also:-) and just go through my pitch when people answer. Bottom line is it's simply easier to actually DO this.

I'll be making more calls today and give the update at the end of the day.

But the way I am not selling or offering this for the people who have emailed me. If you're interested in getting this call MCS at 800-660-6863

Wanted: guinea pigs

I'm looking for a few agents who are new to selling health - the newer the better. If you're a licensed agent and not selling health yet but considering it that's fine too.

I have a site I've been working on for a while and while it's not done yet I'd like a few people who aren't senior agents (since they already everything) to give me a review on what's I've done so far. There's a lot of info to review so I need some people with time to go through it.

Just shoot me an email if interested - info@marylandquotes.com