I'd like to announce that after almost a year of work I've finally launched a social network for insurance agents which is a professional organization for all life, health and senior agents. It's also NO COST to join!
NOLHA (National Organization of Life and Health Agents)
We have sections for health, life and senior agents with video training and an article library. We also feature free live webinars and detailed information for all states. I also am building the first "compare" section where insurance agents can finally compare all products and services.
I heavily recommend when you visit the site that you sign up for the newsletter. The site is updated very often as more and more content is loaded.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thursday, July 31, 2008
New Blog
I'll leave this blog up since if you're a new agent you can dig around in past posts and find a lot of great information.
I have a new video training blog on Wordpress:
I have a new video training blog on Wordpress:
As always, I heavily recommend joining the association I started - IHIAA - which is now experiencing fantastic growth and we're now starting to tour around the country putting on free workshops.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Talk about lack of updates!
Well it's been quite a while since an update on this blog but I'll get back to updating it a few times per week.
It was a very tough transition for me from selling health to working on the association full time. I did not expect the rapid growth - guess I'm by far not the only one who's looking for a positive environment.
With the members we currently have it's interesting now to talk about lead sources. We started out recommending 4 shared lead source we thought were at lead decent - not over-sold.
Results? Agents simply do not do well directly competiting against other agents and it's largely a failed concept. The agents who say "it works" needs to define what "works" means. If it means hunting people down day after day week after week so they can land 1 out of 15, to me that is not "working."
We are now only recommending exclusive lead sources or recommending agents generate their own leads from local marketing efforts - choice is theirs.
We do have one shared source left standing - quite a good source: http://leads4agents.com 100% search driven and non affiliates. If you want shared - there's your source.
The same members we have who were doing either poorly or "so so" with shared and doing great with exclusive. We also have another exclusive source coming to the table.
Exclusive leads run around $18 a pop and 90% are indeed exclusive. Simply put, only 10% go onto other lead sources.
Closing is working out to 1/6 which means $108 returns $700 commission on average with a fraction of the headache of working shared.
You can even get to 1/10 and $180 returns $700 which is ugly but still at $520 profit, you actually have a life and you only need to work 40 leads that week to net just over $2,000.
If you want the three exclusive sources we use - contact me.
Downside to exclusive? Volume can be an issue if you want a small area. You need to be prepared to take the entire state and you need a budget. It's not a program for the income challanged.
On the telemarketing front, we have demoed now with three agents a voice mail campaign BtoB - so it's DNC compliant. When the owner answers they hear a message asking if they would like to receive quotes on health insuance. If yes, press 1, to be removed, press 2.
So far a 10,000 call campaign had resulted in between 18 to 22 leads with the campaign costing around $300. That's around $15 for a live transfer. Now - that's not qualified or health filtered but 1 out of 10 is $150 to return $700 and again, your phone rings.
It was a very tough transition for me from selling health to working on the association full time. I did not expect the rapid growth - guess I'm by far not the only one who's looking for a positive environment.
With the members we currently have it's interesting now to talk about lead sources. We started out recommending 4 shared lead source we thought were at lead decent - not over-sold.
Results? Agents simply do not do well directly competiting against other agents and it's largely a failed concept. The agents who say "it works" needs to define what "works" means. If it means hunting people down day after day week after week so they can land 1 out of 15, to me that is not "working."
We are now only recommending exclusive lead sources or recommending agents generate their own leads from local marketing efforts - choice is theirs.
We do have one shared source left standing - quite a good source: http://leads4agents.com 100% search driven and non affiliates. If you want shared - there's your source.
The same members we have who were doing either poorly or "so so" with shared and doing great with exclusive. We also have another exclusive source coming to the table.
Exclusive leads run around $18 a pop and 90% are indeed exclusive. Simply put, only 10% go onto other lead sources.
Closing is working out to 1/6 which means $108 returns $700 commission on average with a fraction of the headache of working shared.
You can even get to 1/10 and $180 returns $700 which is ugly but still at $520 profit, you actually have a life and you only need to work 40 leads that week to net just over $2,000.
If you want the three exclusive sources we use - contact me.
Downside to exclusive? Volume can be an issue if you want a small area. You need to be prepared to take the entire state and you need a budget. It's not a program for the income challanged.
On the telemarketing front, we have demoed now with three agents a voice mail campaign BtoB - so it's DNC compliant. When the owner answers they hear a message asking if they would like to receive quotes on health insuance. If yes, press 1, to be removed, press 2.
So far a 10,000 call campaign had resulted in between 18 to 22 leads with the campaign costing around $300. That's around $15 for a live transfer. Now - that's not qualified or health filtered but 1 out of 10 is $150 to return $700 and again, your phone rings.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Association as main job now
After yesterday's Norvax webinar my main job now will be running and managing the IHIAA. To me, the number of members is amazing and I greatly appreciate every member.
This industry has so many flaws I can't even count....but let's try:
This industry has so many flaws I can't even count....but let's try:
- Horrible lead sources agents stumble across - waste hundreds/thousands of dollars
- Between lacking to no training on products or the correct products to sell and why
- Zero training about writing apps relating to the claims review process
- No community atmosphere
- No unbiased source of info - we're an association - do not make overrides so we don't need to "steer" agents into selling for any particular carrier
- Agents trapped into bad contracts - can't escape
- Agents trapped in bad agencies - can't escape
- Taught "kill it and grill it" methods of writing business - write an app - onto the next kill
- More of a "just get the deal" - less focus on "career agent"
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Complete automation
Man, I don't know how health insurance was sold 20 years ago but at this point my system is fully automated.
Technology is simply amazing. First of all, let's cover this first - I'm a fan of getting leads as exclusive as possible however generating exclusive leads takes at least 3 hours a day. That's 3 hours I don't have anymore with running the association.
But for brand new agents who have literally never written a single deal - to mirror this - just remember to have a big budget, product knowledge and closing skills.
Ok, so I'm getting shared leads from three different sources and they all get fed to LeadPod. LeadPod is transferring around 26% which is fantastic since on my own I only got a hold of around 12% since my follow-up skills are lacking.
I'm closing 1 out of 4 transfers so let's do the math:
Lead cost: $7 on average
4 transfers: $40 ($10 per transfer)
17 leads to get a deal X $7: $119
Total: $159
Average Commish: $700
Net Profit: $541
Just remember that if you want to budget this out:
20 leads a day X 5 = 100 leads per week X $7 = $700
26 transfers X $10 = $260
Total: $960
That's why I'm saying that this is an advanced system.
This means all I do is feed 17 leads a day into LeadPod and it's $2,700 per week net. Not bad for never having to make an outbound call.
When they transfer a prospect I qualify then take them right to infiniteconferencing.com/join. I like the fixed address - now I don't have to email an invite. I just give them the participation code and there's no download for them to log in.
I start a desktop share and take 'em to my Norvax site - line up a few plans side by side and they choose. I don't do hardly any "first call closes" but we go over the plans, compare them then I email the plan from the Norvax site that we discussed so they can review it.
To me it's all a bit insane:
Do I really get paid to do this?
Also, webinar today at 1pm EST to go over association benefits: www.ihiaa.com
Technology is simply amazing. First of all, let's cover this first - I'm a fan of getting leads as exclusive as possible however generating exclusive leads takes at least 3 hours a day. That's 3 hours I don't have anymore with running the association.
But for brand new agents who have literally never written a single deal - to mirror this - just remember to have a big budget, product knowledge and closing skills.
Ok, so I'm getting shared leads from three different sources and they all get fed to LeadPod. LeadPod is transferring around 26% which is fantastic since on my own I only got a hold of around 12% since my follow-up skills are lacking.
I'm closing 1 out of 4 transfers so let's do the math:
Lead cost: $7 on average
4 transfers: $40 ($10 per transfer)
17 leads to get a deal X $7: $119
Total: $159
Average Commish: $700
Net Profit: $541
Just remember that if you want to budget this out:
20 leads a day X 5 = 100 leads per week X $7 = $700
26 transfers X $10 = $260
Total: $960
That's why I'm saying that this is an advanced system.
This means all I do is feed 17 leads a day into LeadPod and it's $2,700 per week net. Not bad for never having to make an outbound call.
When they transfer a prospect I qualify then take them right to infiniteconferencing.com/join. I like the fixed address - now I don't have to email an invite. I just give them the participation code and there's no download for them to log in.
I start a desktop share and take 'em to my Norvax site - line up a few plans side by side and they choose. I don't do hardly any "first call closes" but we go over the plans, compare them then I email the plan from the Norvax site that we discussed so they can review it.
To me it's all a bit insane:
- Leads from the internet
- Leads fed into Leadpod - only transfer prospect with interest and time to talk
- Desktop share
- Norvax comparisons
- Email quotes
- Online applications
Do I really get paid to do this?
Also, webinar today at 1pm EST to go over association benefits: www.ihiaa.com
Friday, April 18, 2008
Time Change
I'll be running webinar to go over membership benefits on tomorrow, Saturday at 11am EST - not tonight at 6pm. Info is below and on the website www.ihiaa.com
Trying to keep up with updates
Sorry all - trying to keep up with updates and I'm falling behind. Right now I'm still on LeadPod - absolutely love them.
Basically, all of my leads gets fed into LeadPod and they simply make the calls for me. In my particular situation it's a Godsend since most of my day is the association yet I still need to write some business.
This automates my business and frees me up to do other things during the day.
The association is doing extremely well - much better than I thought it would without any formal advertising.
I just started uploading courses online: www.ihiaa.coursehost.com
Right now I have over 30 courses to upload - it's a fantastic format since members can punch into any course and everything is indexed.
I'm also going to do my 1st live webinar this week about membership and I'm sorry if I have not replied to your email or called you back yet regarding questions. Between current members and writing business I'm behind on answering some questions.
Tonight at 6pm EST just go to:
www.infiniteconferencing.com/join
Code: 2101012
Call into: 712-432-1699 code: 449228
Basically, all of my leads gets fed into LeadPod and they simply make the calls for me. In my particular situation it's a Godsend since most of my day is the association yet I still need to write some business.
This automates my business and frees me up to do other things during the day.
The association is doing extremely well - much better than I thought it would without any formal advertising.
I just started uploading courses online: www.ihiaa.coursehost.com
Right now I have over 30 courses to upload - it's a fantastic format since members can punch into any course and everything is indexed.
I'm also going to do my 1st live webinar this week about membership and I'm sorry if I have not replied to your email or called you back yet regarding questions. Between current members and writing business I'm behind on answering some questions.
Tonight at 6pm EST just go to:
www.infiniteconferencing.com/join
Code: 2101012
Call into: 712-432-1699 code: 449228
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