2 deals and a trip

I was slammed today - no time spent on the phone. I wrote two deals which took up most of my day - didn't even follow up with the leads I generated yesterday.

I also got my formal notification today that I won the Time Palm Springs trip in May! I'm very excited - 4 years in the insurance biz and this is my 3rd trip.

I absolutely love these trips - so does my wife. Looking very forward to it. The insurance industry really seems to do a great job of making it a real trip and not some kind of "junk" trip.

I won a contest before in another industry and won a trip only to find out airfare and food was on me. All they were picking up was the hotel. Gee, thanks. But the insurance companies pick up airfare, food, lodging and give you spend cash. Now that's a trip.

Tomorrow we're on for the webinar which I'm looking forward to. I'll be shooting out emails tomorrow morning with the link and number to call for all those who responded.

Webinar for Wednesday

We'll have another webinar:

Wednesday the 6th
1 PM EST

Just getting together, trade ideas on marketing, sales, and generally shooting the shit. Anyone who wants to attend needs to email me:

info@marylandquotes.com

And now I bring you truth in advertising

Results for today

My wife's still at work and my son gets off the bus soon so I have to cut today a bit short. I was on the MCS dialer for 90 minutes, got 7 leads. Not too bad. I updated my spreadsheet - just click "February Tracking" on the right.

I use an Excel sheet for detailed info but always import into Google just in case my computer crashes. Just so we can have some fun and track along with me I just put the very basic info.

Last week I said I was playing around with really getting into more qualification on the 1st call. Some people are up for that, other's aren't and the "if it's not broke don't fix it" saying comes into play. I've used a certain system for working my telemarked leads that's been getting me results now for over a year.

Step 1:
Generate the lead - soft touch

"I'm calling because there's a lot of new plans and rates in Maryland for individual health insurance from the top carriers like Blue Cross, United Health care, Time and Aetna. What I'd like to do is send you the information and you can see whether or not you can save some money. Do you have a group plan or your own?"

(ps: don't say "how are you today?" when making cold calls. It does more harm then good.)

I then get their email, I'll ask a few more questions to owners who have time, then end with "I'll follow up with you, probably in a day or two."

Step 2
Call back to qualify
As you follow my sheet you'll see this is the "separate the men from the boys" call. I'll be ascertaining the level of interest, dumping off those with little to no interest and heavy qualification. Set up a firm app't to go over plans and rates.

Step 3
Call or show up for appointment
Either log them into my webinar or show up in person for the presentation.

If it doesn't need to be more complicated then that.

As for a webinar this week - we'll have one and I'll post the day and time either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Tracking with me for February

Showing is better than trying to explain so since we've just started this month I'm going to share a Google spreadsheet. This way you can track the lead and deals. My main leads go on Excel but at the end of each day I'll import then into this sheet and update it.

The spreadsheet is here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p8HKIagCuSCgDt1YTvtg4DA

Obviously all personal info is gonna be blocked 0ut since I'll be putting detailed comments about each lead.

What you'll be able to see is "X" hours of generating leads = "X" leads which results in "X" deals. For those who have any misconceptions about what it actually takes to put in $700,000+ in volume this will be a splash of water on your face. I'll also be logging in time spent each day generating the leads.

I think a lot of agents think you get a few leads - 20 or so a week and all you really need to work on is your closing skills and pitch. If that's so you're far better than me. It takes a lot of leads and a lot of phone time to me to write a decent amount of business.

What you're going to see is that it's about lead volume. Since I generate my own leads it's a mixture of volume and quality.

Results are in - no office

The overwhelming response to yesterday's post was no store-front office. A lot of emails I got did indeed convince me that over-all it would be a waste of money.

Store-front expenses would be at least $4,000 a month and that would be for a small location including phones, utilities and a secretary.

I'm not sure how many people who walk in - probably few to zero. So if there's little to no walk in traffic then the only benefit of having store-front space would be setting appointments for clients to come in and meet with me. I think those results would be lacking.

If I just want to be around other agents for some atmosphere the best move would be office sharing. The problem with sharing expenses with other agents is being stuck with all the bills if they decided to pull the plug and go back to working from home.

My problem with sitting in my home office all day is about to be solved in the spring by attending local events - which is another gamble but one that I'm ready to take.

I really haven't met any agents who have consistently done trade shows, fairs, and other local events. I know when I was with UGA we did a large trade show at the Baltimore Convention Center and I had a 4 hour shift - got many leads.

I did a health fair sponsored by a local hospital - held in a fire station from 10am to 2pm and maybe a few hundred people where there. I wrote 7 apps spread out over the next month.

I think that fact that those apps were spread out psyched me into thinking that it wasn't effective. Especially since at that time there were no online apps and deals took from between 2 and 3 weeks to underwrite.

So from the day of the health fair to the day the last deal was approved was over 2 months. Also, these events are only as effective as you are. I don't see sitting in a chair behind a table and letting people grab the brochures and giveaways as effective. In fact, that method could result in zero business.

I think the method that works is standing in front of the table and at least handing flyers out to everyone that comes by and engaging the people who are interested.

An obvious down-side to these events is they're mainly on weekends and things like fairs and festivals run all day/all night. So either me or someone else would have to man the table or booth for possibly 12 hours.

Office or no office

One of my goals this year was to get an office and as it stands now I'm still weighing the pros and cons.

Would it just be added expenses for the same amount of business? There are around 5 agency owners in my chamber of commerce - two are "franchise" owners; Nationwide and State Farm but the other 3 are just independent mainly writing P&C.

I'm the only one without an office. They all have retail, not office locations. What I mean is all have offices in plaza's - not on the 8th story of some office building.

That crap's expensive - just to rent an office in a complex is from $1,000 to $1,500 - easily. And that's a small office.

Store-front locations run $2,000 to $4,000 a month depending on size and location. Do they all know something I don't? I do a pretty decent job motivating myself to work so having an office just for the sake of having an office would be added expenses.

For me, going for an office would have to increase my business and that's where I'm stuck. If I had a store-front location would I actually get a bit of traffic? When I did local advertising would it pull better since people also notice my office?

One part of me can't see people coming in to sit down and buy health insurance. Yet these other agencies don't seem to have a problem with people coming in and sitting down.

I think it's unfortunately one of those things where it's impossible to predict the results until I simply do it. But for obvious reasons it would tough to pull the trigger one a one or two year lease and have the added expense if it didn't work.

Also, I have a love/hate relationship with working from home. Same days I'd really like to go to an office and being at home is depressive. Other days I'm happy as hell that I work from home and couldn't see going into an office that day.

If this is something I'm gonna do I'd want it done in the spring when I plan on being at a lot of local events.

Great demo today

Thanks to everyone who joined in for the demo today. For those who didn't and just want some basic info I have a pretty detailed page under my "Campaign Marketing Solutions" link on the right of my blog. I'll also be doing more free demo's for people who want to see how it works.

Very good day today and a GR app from a lead generated Monday. I'm very excited about the direction this year's heading. I absolutely cannot wait until spring time so I can get out there and sponsor events like fairs and festivals.

What it's coming down to for me is being out there sponsoring events, participating on chamber of commerce events and telemarketing. I think a combination of those three will really work great together.

If it's anything I really want to get across over and over again it's to generate your own leads. I hear people talk about how that's "old school" and I'm not taking advantage of technology.

However, I've hired a ton of agents over the past years and I don't see how technology helped them. In fact, for "technology" being that fantastic the failure rate is still stunning.

Actually, the technology has been harmful to most agents. They're focusing on these websites with quote engines and buying leads which results not only in wasted money but a false hope of production that never comes or comes too sporadically.

If you must buy leads at least make them a supplement source to other marketing. I think the largest problem is agents are not working full days if you could work as:

• Prospecting
• Contacting leads
• Presenting

"Work" is not being at Office Depot or messing with your spreadsheets. That's work avoidance. It's very to put in a full 8 hour day when you're getting 5 leads. When that's the case of of your day is screwing off while fooling yourself into thinking you're working.

If you want those 5 leads then great - get 'em. But after they're called and you've followed up with your previous leads you and I both know you have a ton of time left in the day. Then it's pick one:

• Telemarket
• Go BtoB
• Participate in some local event - heck, go hang flyers on bulletin boards

ANY MARKETING ACTIVITY IS BETTER THAN NO MARKETING ACTIVITY!

Not in the mood for anything. Your spouse pissed you off this morning and you have a "middle finger in the air" attitude?" Great - throw on jeans and a shirt, grab flyers and slap 'em up on door or businesses.

I hear this all the time:

"But how many calls will I get?"

The reply?

"How many calls will you get sitting on your ass in your office?"

At best, just doing some type of marketing activity boosts your self-esteem and gives you energy. Doing nothing just fills you with self-doubt about whether or not you'll ever made great money doing this.

Demo's on for today

For those of you who want to see the demo of Marketing Campaign Solution's CRM dialer I'll be hosting it today at 1pm EST. For those who have already emailed me I'll be sending out the link to GoToMeeting with the number to call in 30 minutes before the session - so check your email.

I'll be showing everyone how it works, the features and the effectiveness.

Playing around with the script

Just got finished with my hour and a half of calls and after spending the morning following up with previous leads I decided to screw with script. I followed up with around 12 leads I recently generated and set up a solid in-person meeting for Thursday.

Everyone else was "....all looks great - we'll get back in touch with you." Now I really don't mind that but it's just both of our time that's wasted.

Right now I'm tracking 1 out of 8 leads closing from the leads I generate. I, like everyone else, don't really like being told "no" but my biggest pet peeve is following up with people who don't want to be followed up with.

If I'm pitching someone who says no, that's it. It's over - 15 seconds of their time that I wasted and they forget I ever called 5 minutes later.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not looking for every lead to be a deal but I changed my script to be more direct thereby wasting a lot less time with people. I used to call and talk sending new plans and rates. Today I tried:

".........from Maryland Health Plans. I'm calling to see if I can offer my services. I run a local agency and help people who would like to either lower their health insurance rate or improve their plan. What I do is shop all the main carriers and show you the most affordable options..."

So as you can see, this is not a "send you rates" script - this is a "would you like my services" script. I did this for 90 minutes and obviously far more "no's" but the "yes's" are as solid as they get.

Now instead of talking about sending plans and rates I'm talking about what I have to offer in the way of services:

• Searching all the carriers to find the most affordable comprehensive plans
• Take care of the application process
• Provide all ongoing support for any issue - no more calling 800 numbers

Although it was far more no's I really enjoyed talking to the 2 leads about what I have to offer instead of just sending plans and rates.

These are my stats today with this new script - 91 minutes and I actually got 2 leads - don't know why it's only logging 1. As you can see, I was blowing through calls - 249 in 90 minutes. It's because I wasn't wasting time I normally wasted on the "just send me information" people.




I also already got two call-backs but both hit my VM since I actually took a break for lunch. I called back one and just hit their machine but the other one left their cell and email address and wanted the info.

What I think this is gonna be is the exact same amount of time on the phone, same amount of deals, far less follow up.

Prospecting, the lost art and a CRM demo

First of all I really want to thank those who joined in on the webinar. It really went well! To those of you who replied a little late, I cut it off at a relatively small number of agents just to make sure it would turn out ok. It did.

We had a great chat session, traded ideas and some links. This was exactly my goal - to get independent agents together, brainstorm and trade information. We will absolutely be having one webinar per week and take it from there.

As everyone knows I'm using Marketing Campaign Solution's CRM for telemarketing and I'm going to offer a live demo. Anyone interested can punch into the webinar and I'll use the live desktop feature and three-way calling. This way you can see and year the action.

The CRM Predictive Dialer Live Demo Webinar:

This Wednesday the 30th at 1pm EST. Only licensed agents can attend and just email me for an inviation.


THE LOST ART OF PROSPECTING (or maybe "the lost art of working")

I firmly believe the single worst thing to happen to the insurance community is shared leads. It has taken what would have otherwise been a great career and turned it into a concept of sitting in front of your computer wearing sweatpants (you're wearing sweatpants, not the computer) and becoming some unmotivated drone.

The 8 hour work day has been replaced by numbingly waiting for a lead to hit your inbox and calling people back who haven't wanted to talk to you the 4 previous times you called. But hey - this is the 5th call so maybe they'll answer.

We have replaced hard work and building a local business with the thrill of easy money - yet that "easy money" seldom comes as agents, in great frustration, call lead after lead and hit voicemail after voicemail. Then finally you connect and get "you're the 5th agent to call me!"

That is not the insurance business people. Why are we not active in our local community? Why don't we advertise everywhere and participate in local events? Why? Because, like crack, we've been told we can get a quick fix without much effort.

There is a force in the universe that will not allow us to make a lot of money without a lot of work. I have a feeling a lot of new insurance agents also have the Carlton Sheets and Don Lapre courses at home.

More and more this field seems to attract lazy "get me rich quick" agents instead of agents willing to put their nose to the grindstone and simply work. This industry becoming just another "six figure" punchline for a bad infomercial.

We need to get back to building a business. We need to make 70% of our day prospecting/marketing and 30% sales presentations. Right now it's 10% of our day spent on prospecting and the good news is the other 90% is freed up - no one to present to!

Everyone needs to pick three and at any given point in time you're doing 1 of these three or presenting to a client:

1) BtoB
2) Telemarketing
3) A lead-producing activity such as local events, network clubs, etc...

We are greatly rewarded psychologically for working hard. Something inside us wants to give a pat on the back after a good hard productive day.

Conversely we feel bad about ourselves when we don't work hard - call it guilt. Then our self-esteem takes a hit since deep down inside we know we're support to be working hard, yet choose not to. At that point is a slide down a very steep hill as you start looking for the Sunday paper to hit.

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

CRM installed!

Just got off the phone with Gary's tech support and I'm ready to go! Now, not like I'm the world's biggest fan of making calls but again, in 2008 it's all self-generated leads. After talking to a lot of established agency owners I just don't see a reason for pay for leads. But you also have to do what works for you at the same time.

Although I'm not a fan of making calls I'm also not a fan of B to B. I do it because it works. But I know myself and once I get going I can really get into it. Getting into my car for B to B is 90% of the battle for me. Once I'm at my location my brain shifts to being productive and trying to get as many leads as possible.

Same with telemarketing - 90% of the battle for me is picking up the phone and dialing for first number. I think Gary's auto-dialing system is gonna solve a lot of problems:

• I don't have the daunting task anymore of manually dialing where I have to always psych myself into making the next call. Now I dial into a server and I'm on auto pilot.
  

• It's obviously more effective. I'm used to hand-dialing 50 numbers per hour, speaking to 10 or so owners and generating around 3 leads. Closing 1 out of 15 means 5 hours on the phone but I'm baked after 2 hours. So in the past that's meant 2 1/2 days of calls to get a deal.
  

• Now this system will be dialing 120 or so number per hour and my results will more than double. Mentally that gets me more in the game since the outcome is more noticeable

• I can't leave messages when I hand-dial; total waste of time. But now messages are left while the system continues to dial. That's the "X" factor and I'll find out those results next week.
  

• I'm a tracking geek. I love spreadsheets and figuring out ratios. For hand dialing it's a pad of paper and pen. However, this spits out cool reports so I can track everything.
  

So starting Monday I'll be using this and posting the results. Stay tuned.

Wrapping up the Week

Ended this week by just doing a Carefirst app for a grand total of three apps this week. Not bad, but not peeling the paint off the walls either. I want 5 apps per week on average throughout this year. I know I'm capable of submitting a million in premium.

True to my goals this year I will not be purchasing any leads - they will all be self-generated from a pretty wide variety of marketing methods.

I really can't wait to do some events however reality is I'll need to wait until spring. There are obviously very few outdoor events like fair and festivals in the winter.

So for now I'll be concentrating on a combination of B to B and telemarketing. I'll be using Gary's system (Marking Campaign Solutions) to telemarket and be happy to post the results. I'm actually waiting for one of his techs to call to set the system up.

Man do I love this job!

Here's the view from my deck right now. Snow's coming down hard here - roads are already a mess. Not a problem, I don't skip a beat with making calls or taking an app online. I also have my son getting out early which isn't an issue.

It's days like this when I really appreciate what I do. It wasn't too long ago I was selling cars and if anyone here has sold cars before you know exactly what you do when it snows; break out a shovel and start cleaning off cars! Man I used to hate that.

Even in other fields like when I sold home improvements all of my appointments today would have been canceled. It's just insane that there's a home-based job that exists (aside from stuffing envelopes, processing government loans and assembling jewelry) where you can make fantastic money and it doesn't matter what's going on outside.

I'll be watching the evening news as everyone's tied up in a 2 hour traffic jam around the beltway.

Got to work

Well I got off my ass today and hit the phones. For me most of the battle is simply getting into the groove but once I'm there it's smooth sailing. Good day on the phone too - five solid prospects who I'll be quoting tomorrow.

And now my Golden Rule rant

I only like quoting final rates. I simply can't stand saying "oh, and add $36 if you want that option." When I quote all carriers except GR it's like Ragu; "it's already in there." However, GR has no quoting tool that will spit out one final figure.

On the software you only get a page of add-ons; lifetime max buy-up, drug card, and preventative for Plan 100 and 80. For Copay select it's additional to buy up the drug max. I'm not exactly sure what the software does anyway since you can't email quotes. You can view it or print it - useless.

The bottom line is I like taking clients to my website so we can use the quoting tool. But when I use the quoting tool and tell them to click on the "view benefits page" I now have to "sell" drug coverage or the buy-up.

For families the GR quote link shows a nasty low-ball figure. For example, if I'm showing Plan 100 to a family and they're looking at a rate of $253 they get excited. But alas, we click the view benefit button and come to find it's $65 extra for drug coverage and $67 for the preventative package. So it's a $130 low-ball!

What I tell my clients as soon as we pull up the rates is not to pay any attention to the first figure and the rates are actually on the "view benefits" page.

We all know why GR does this - because most agents never include the drug card, drug buy-up or preventive in the quote because they're too scared to lose the sale by telling clients that valuable options are an additional price.

What GR desperately needs is Asurant's software.

Well, here we go again

Two deals already submitted an approved and an app going (hopefully) today. And this is where it all goes south and my mind starts messing with me.

I'm completely unmotivated today. Why? Because it's Wednesday morning and I've made enough to cover the bills with a little left over - so now it's a fight with myself today to dig in and go that extra mile.

I think it's natural. Unless you have this "Donald Trump" mentality and drive most people would rather be doing other things besides work. But I do love what I do it's just getting over that hurdle of stopping or slowing down after I've made "X" amount.

So today it's simply back on the phones for me.

Wrapping it up today

Another good day on the phones both generating leads and calling back some old leads. My bottom line at the end of each day is I need 10 solid leads.

A few have asked about my system; as in what do I do when I call a prospect. Everyone has what works from them - this works for me:

Step 1:
I simply introduce myself, state what I do and tell them they might be able to save a significant amount of money. After that it's mainly questions. If they won't answer questions saying they're either too busy or just give one-word answers where it's apparent that they don't want to talk it's over. I put them on my Constant Contact email list and they get quarterly reminders.

I'm only looking for people who complain. They can bitch about:

• Their rate sucks
• Their coverage sucks
• They don't have coverage and hate not having it

But unless they're conversational about one of those three things I pretty much don't have a deal. I cannot "sell" health insurance too well. If I think they're rate's high but they don't think it's high there's generally no deal.

I absolutely don't mess around with people who don't have current coverage especially if interest is lacking.

All in all I don't work too well with people when my 6th sense tells me they simply don't want to be bothered. Instead of breaking out the sales tactics I've found it more productive and easier on my attitude to simply move on.

Step 2:
Qualify. I qualify to death. I want to know their complete history before I talk about carriers and rates. It's a mistake to simply ask if they have any pre-existing conditions. They generally won't disclose medical events is the past years where there's been a full recovery. Instead, I how often they've seen a doctor over the past "X" years (generally 5 or 7.) Then I start digging from there.

After I've done the pre-qual I can determine if I can better their situation. If I can I tell them I'm going to put together an email with the brochures of the plan I'm going to recommend and set the appointment - either phone or in person.

Step 3:
If it's a phone deal I call at the appointed time and for in-person I've already confirmed and show up. This is when they see rates - not before! Why? Because if clients see the plans and rates, then you get off the phone with them they have little incentive to get back in contact with you. They have everything they need - why talk to you again?

For a phone deal I take them to my site during the "appointment" and have them click on the company I'm recommending. We go over plans and rates and do the app.

For deals where the rate will not be same (rats up for Assurant and Aetna or Standard 1 or 2 for GR) I don't have them click on the links. They will not show the final rates. For those cases I work up the final rates, tranfer them to a Word doc. and upload them into my Webinar - then direct my client to the webinar.

I used to send clients rates after the 1st call and found that to be a mistake. They don't know what they're looking at anyway; Aetna PPO30, GR plan 100, CoreMed.....they have no clue so what good are the rates?

I also think some people get turned off if they see 80 different plans and options, think it'll just be too long an confusing and don't get back in touch.

There has to be some kind of hook - some reason for them to pick up the phone again or something cool to leave on their voice mail. You've already sent plans and rates? Oh, what's your VM message: "Ummm, this is John, Call me I guess."

My message is "Hey Jim, it's John from Maryland Health Plans. I put together some rates and I think you'll be very impressed."

Nice way to start the day

Last night I got a call from a referral last night - needed coverage for their son in VA who has asthma - won't take an exclusion for it. GR came is lower but actually not that much lower and the parents didn't care about the copay option - so into Assurant that went. That'll be a CSD instead of a rider.

Even though it's only $117 it's still $1,404 in volume and I'll take it - especially for a referral who says "so how do we get this started?"

Posting my daily results again

Been talking to a few people who miss when I was posting my results; spreadsheets, deals, etc...

That's no problem and actually motivational for me so starting today I'll be posting my daily routine and results.

As for today so far I just got off the phone with a prospect:

She's 28 and has HPV (human papilloma virus.) With GR and Assurant it's an exclusion at best so she's MHIP bound (Maryland Health Insurance Plan.) She's $157 per month for a $1,000 deductible plan so why bother with riders. She's at higher risk for cervical cancer.

But we have the husband, age 39 who's perfectly health but a small snag with the kids - ages 4 and 5. One has asthma and is on Albuterol and the other has Eczema with daily topical medicated cream.

I'll probably be looking to GR for this - don't see too much liability with riders for those conditions. I could throw it to Assurant however rates are 40% higher and additional rate doesn't compensate for having the meds covered especially taking the $500 drug deductible into account.

As for business submitted today - did a Plan 80 - husband, wife and two kids on a budget. $285 X 12 = $3,420 in submitted premium today (above.)

Very excited for '08!

I'm very geared up for '08. I think it's going to be my best year in this business. I posted a while back about potential changes to our industry in the upcoming years. The bottom line is no one knows what's going to happen 3, 5 or 10 years from now. I'm sure if you asked Mass. agents 5 years ago whether or not their state would have implemented their system most would have said "Nah - just a bunch of politicians talking."

I like "expect the best, plan for the worst." I really love this industry and what I do but have admittedly not maximized my potential. I really don't want the train to stop some time in the future and spend the rest of my life saying "well, I really could have made "X" amount if I would have given it 100%."

I will never maximize my potential sitting in a chair in front of a computer. I'm a people person - not a glorified telemarketer. I simply perform better and are much happier when I'm out and about.

My flyer campaign is first - I'll be out with those this week. Although I'll continue with telemarketed leads those will be eventually burn out since I'm only generating business is my locality this coming year. I'll have much more of a focus on renting table space at events - to which I have no earthly clue as to what the return will be on that.

But I'm not a "guesser." You can play with stupid math scenarios and lock yourself into "analysis paralysis" and never get anything done. Most new ventures are "do, fail, tweak, re-do." I'm prepared for that.

The bottom line is this; I can go B to B as I have many, many times in the past and write 3 apps a week for 10 hours of B to B. My average commish is $800 so you can do that math. Expenses are zero (minus cost of flyers.) Can another agent make 10 hours of calls and get 3 deals? Not sure - maybe. Are they all biz owners? Probably not.

Every time I've done B to B my laziness kicks in and I start thinking "well there just has to be a way where I can do less effort with the same results."

But B to B is also no long term solution since again, you burn up the territory. You can't walk into the same business again a months later: "Hey, me again."

I'm simply anxious to see how being very active in the community in general will result in business. Only time will tell.

Researching local events

A few months ago we went to a German festival at Fort Meade which is five minutes from our house. It was packed with sponsors who all had tables - well over 50 businesses. The place was mobbed and there were lines of people waiting to visit the tables to pick up information and the giveaways.

Come to find out later it was a whopping $150 to rent a table. You didn't need any huge trade show display. All you needed was $150 and something to give people who stopped by.

The event was Sat. and Sun. Just a wild guess - I would have pulled at least 20 deals out of it. I pulled 7 deals out of a small health fair held at a local fire station (which only ran 10am to 2pm) in '04 and about 200 people where there. There's one thing however I don't have to guess at. I didn't get any business out of it because I didn't have a table.

I've done a lot of research and obviously events are all over the place - far too many to be to personally attend. I'd like to be at the larger events this year - the Maryland State Fair pulls in 600,000 people. How much business would I get out of that?

I think a lot of it is how you have it designed. If you just plant your ass in a chair and people come by to just take your brochures and giveaways - probably not that many. If you create a bit of a buzz and get people to write down their basic info then obviously you'll do a lot better.

In our area Chick-Fil-A always has a booth where you spin a wheel to see which giveaway you'll gonna get. You also fill out a card to win a bigger prize.

I'm not sure I can give away any type of large prize due to rebating laws. But I can absolutely have people fill out short "get a free quote" cards. The bottom line is when people come by you want their contact information.

FREE hit counter and Internet traffic statistics from freestats.com

Gearing up for '08

My original goal has not been forgotten; to establish a local health insurance agency. True to that goal I'm gearing up for '08 in a few days. Everything done to gain business with be local. That will include:

1) Local telemarketed leads
2) Renting table/booth space at events
3) B to B flyers - probably pay someone to distribute them
4) Ads in local publictions

My theory:
A lot of people would review their coverage and possibly switch but there's no local established agent/agency they know about and trust. We all know that most people actively seeking quotes are young, broke or unhealthy.

Most people with money, between 40 to 62 with coverage just suck it up. They're likely uphappy with their rate but wouldn't be caught dead typing in their personal information on the net.

I am happiest when I'm out of the house. I successfully sold online for almost a year - never met with a single client. And I was never more miserable.

Merry Christmas

MERRY

CHRISTMAS!!!

Hell Yeah!

Mail truck pulls up yesterday and gives me a package. I open it up and it's a frick'n Magellan RoadMate GSP Navigation system from my Assurant RSD. How cool is that!

I've been wanting a navigation system for a while so I'm thrilled. I've been playing with it every since I got it - has the voice feature and everything else I'd want.

In other news, my seminar for new agents is almost done. Actually, there's not too much to put together. We all remember when we first go licensed and said "Ok, now what."

Most newbies get sucked into NAA, Mega and Aflac or captive life companies who may or may not be telling them what it's really gonna take to make that "easy six figure" income everyone's touting.

I'm a firm believer that any agent who has a great work ethic and sales skills would do far better selling health insurance then any other product. But just how would any agent get into the health field? Ummm.....unless it's UGA, Cornerstone or UA they wouldn't. Most new agents don't even know companies like Golden Rule exist none less how to get appointed.

The seminar isn't going to be about one company being better or one way of generating leads being superior. It'll be about letting agents know all the available ways to generate leads with all the pros and cons of any method.

So what I've put together is a "how to become a health insurance agent." No one will contact under me - that's a conflict of interest.

I've received a decent amount of feedback regarding pricing and everyone's all over the map from $50 to over $1,000.

First of all, it's not necessarily about what it's worth but what people are willing and able to pay. It's also about starting low to establish myself then possibly charging more. I think the initial fee will be around $200.

No more secretaries?

I guess this is a bit off topic from health insurance but I've been doing a lot of research lately which entails calling a lot of companies. I'm stunned by the number of voice mails I get either calling the mail toll free number or going straight to the voicemail of people high up in the company.

Where the hell did all the secretaries go? I don't mind hitting voicemail if I'm calling a person or home-based business. But if I'm calling a company with a business location I should never hit voicemail - ever.

These companies don't want to spring for $12/hr to have someone answer the phone? There's also a lot of message services you can hire where someone will answer with your company name and take a message.

Even more insane is unreturned messages. These companies have no idea why I'm calling - if I hit "Bob's" voicemail I simply leave "please call me back at ****" message. I could be a potential client - no returned call.

Still chugging along

Again, sorry for the lack of updates but between Christmas, my wife starting a new job, keeping up on individual business and working on a project my time has been limited, but I'll be back to updating every day.

I'm not doing any type of marketing right now for new health sales - kinda "off" until Jan 2nd. I still get new business from existing leads and referrals. I also have renewals.

Right now I'm putting together a kind of workshop or seminar to educate newly licensed agents or agents looking to make a switch into health insurance sales. It will not replace my individual sales but simply be something I do around twice a month.

No one needs me to explain that new agents basically are screwed when it comes to carrier contracts, lead sources and a myriad of other land mines and pitfalls. As we all know, most new agents get snatched up by unethical captive companies and those who wish to go independent don't have the faintest clue on how to go about it. They end up signing up with agencies who only tout one or possibly two carriers.

I still have not figured out:

1) How long the seminar would need to be - I'm thinking 6 hours.
2) How much I'd charge.

It's actually not a matter of how much I'd charge, but how much someone's willing to pay for a fair value. Comments are welcome. How much would any of your paid to get "all the scoop" on going independent.

Sorry for the lack of updates

I'm sorry for the lack of updates but I'd like what I post to be new and not just rehashing old posts. I'm current doing consulting for four clients so I'm trying to give them my time. Although I'm still writing deals I'm also working heavily on a project - have been for about 2 months now - that's not even close to being finished yet. When it gets closer to being done I'll talk more about it.

Up to 8 agents??? WTF!

I'm trying to help out a new agent and am doing some shared lead research for him. Just got off the phone with InsureMe since a few year ago they were one of my better sources - the volume was simply never there.

I was stunned when I asked how many agents share the lead and heard "up to 8." What! Up to 8? She said the average is between 3 to 5 but yes, in some markets it's shared with 8 agents.

Man, you just really have to feel for these people wondering onto websites thinking they're gonna see quotes and up the 8 agents call them. How in the hell does InsureMe think the client is served by any more than 3 agents calling? It really burns my biscuits.

Holiday blues

Ok, even I like this template better. Done.

I'm getting a bad case of the holiday blues which is way too soon. I still have 2 1/2 weeks of solid selling to do and I'm doing my best to punch it out until the 21st. From the 21st to the 2nd you're pretty much dead in the water. Consider it our industry's one week vacation.

My wife just started her first job in six year yesterday! That's fantastic since any income she brings in is extra money - and we need it. Although I made good money I'm buried in tax debt from before I even became an agent. Then during my 4 years as an agent I made 3 good attempts at recruiting. Unless you have a bank roll and don't mind working 12 hours a day I don't recommend hiring.

I can give you a little "recruting 101"

First of all, how much are you writing? If you're not writing much you shouldn't hire - if you can't do you can't teach. Actually, if you can't do you shouldn't teach. If you can do, and make good money it will take 4 agents writing the same amount as you to replace your income. About 1 out of every 50 agents hired will be a consistent producer - and you have to train and babysit the other 49.

Marketing

First of all, now I'm depressed. I hated the old look of this blog and really like the new antique look. However, my sister thinks it looks girly. Oh well.

I think I've succeeded in confusing a lot of people regarding marketing in general - shared leads, live transfers, hire girls, get Gary's CRM, etc...

Let's break it down:

The single best way to generate leads is picking up the phone and making calls. It's free and effective. I really recommend Gary's CRM (call Gary at 912-944-2540.) You can easily generate 4 to 6 leads per hour - call it 5 for the math and you'll write 2 to 3 deals week.

If you're new in this field you want to be able to take your time with clients until you get a feel all of this.

If you're new in this business:

A) Pick up the phone and start making calls
B) Hit the street with some flyers and go B to B

There is no "C." Spending a lot of money on leads when you're new is pretty much an express ticket out of this business. Under no circumstance would I recommend a new agent buy shared leads. Save yourself the time and just hop on Monster.com

Even now I don't go anywhere without flyers in my car. If we stop off at any shopping plaza I hit every store then catch up to my wife. If I get a deal a month out of it that could be $700 a month extra.

Live transfers and hiring marketers/running a campaign

I would only recommend spending money in leads when you at least have a few deals under your belt. When you do, make sure you're spending money on exclusive leads. There has never been a more failed concept than sharing leads. Most will fail. The few with success experience great frustration and it's not the way to make a living in this business.

Even with all that said I'm out to proove to myself that nothing will trump establishing a stong local presence.

Offering consulting

I offered consulting services over a year ago and it was quite successful. Unfortuntely, and to be honest, I let a few bitter agents get to me who thought it was horribly unethical for me to charge for help and information. That decision I feel is up to the person who's willing to pay.

This post is spawned by yet another new agent I just go off the with who said "I just too much help and can't waste that much of your time." This is a recurring theme from people who contact me. I'm simply charging $20/hr and there's no minimum.

I can offer and will always offer people free advice. But there's a difference between a 20 minute conversation and someone who really needs and wants help - especially on-going help.

A lot of people who contact me are embarrassed to "waste my time" and understand that I work for a living. I think a lot of agent never contact anyone at all. Under no circumstances should agents be "winging" this business. There are far too many traps and pitfalls unless you want the typical 1 year learning curve that costs you $30K in marketing and lost deals.

What I have to offer quite frankly is very valuable - especially for new agents. I can show you how to get the best contracts that fits your needs and basically go over A to Z of anything relating to health insurance.

Well - the pitch is here:

http://healthinsuranceconsulting.blogspot.com/

My appointment this morning

Wow - almost the appointment from hell. Sell that one online? I barely made it out the house with an app. He was fantastic on the phone but laid into me at the house. He's computer software engineer and simply went over every detail.

His hang up? Lab and ER going to the deductible. He couldn't get past it. He kept saying over and over "so basically except for seeing a doctor I owe thousands." Ummmm....yes.

I would not have closed that as a new agent. I had everything on dining room table. It was a sea of brochures and rates. I had to show it "is it what it is." We covered Assurant's bad rates, Aetna's horrible rates and Blue Cross' lacking coverage - and still everyone's lab and ER hits the deductible.

He was flustered but knew his wife and kids had to have coverage. He literally had his head in his hands and said "So this Golden Rule is the best we're gonna get?" Yep - best rates, great coverage. He signed.

How the Vimo transfers work

I've received a lot of emails about the Vimo transfers so I'll post the entire scoop. First of all, you can call Justin at 650-230-0070. If you do decide to sign up please do me a favor and use me as your reference - I do get a credit for referrals. And although I do get a credit I would never recommend any lead source that I don't think is fantastic. And you're talking to a guy who hasn't purchased an internet lead in almost 2 years.

*You sign up and fund your account. I believe you need $100 to fund it but talk to Justin. I already had credits in my account from over a year and a half ago when I used their shared leads - then chose to suspend my account. I found their shared leads to be lacking.

*As you see in my screenshot, you then see the bids for the states you chose. Since there's not a high volume of leads available in any given state you're encouraged to choose more than one. As you see, I picked my backyard - MD, VA and DC. Then you bid. It's like Ebay for leads - almost. You can ask about what the bids are like in your state before you sign up. I believe in TX max bid's are like $65. I think it speaks volumes if there's an agent out there willing to spend $65 per lead. Well - think about it. For $195 (1 out of 3 closing) to return $700 go ahead and close 1 per day and you're at $2,500 net for the week and your job is answering the phone when it rings. I'll take it.

*When some one hits the Vimo site as you can see they have two options - run quotes themselves or talk to a professional. I really like this. Obviously only the most interested people will choose to speak with an agent. The prospect then speaks with a Vimo rep who does a basic qualification - height/weight, major conditions, the basic story and makes sure they will wait on hold while they transfer to an agent.

*The higest bidding agent is the 1st one called. If that agent doesn't pick up or passes it goes to the next bidder. So you can pass? Yes. When your phone rings you are not connected with the prospect or charged at that point. You're on wiht the Vimo rep who gives you the Reader's Digest version - age, general situation, etc...You then choose to accept the call or pass. If you accept you're connected and also recorded. This is just in case the call drops or during your health screening you uncover a major declineable condition. Then there's no charge.

*You can set you preferences for times you want to be called and also pause your account. Obviously you're not charged if Vimo calls you and you don't pick up but it's a waste of everyone's time to have you phone ring if you're not available. Pause you account.

*The leads are exclusive. You can take the calls, go over the basics with the prospect and collect all the info you need, then arrange a time to call back. No one else can get that lead.

ROI

As I posted below - how much does it cost for you to be on the phone with a qualified prospect who wants to speak with you? You tell me. At $8 per lead for 20 leads that's $160. So you tell me what normally happens after you call 20 shared leads. Do you get a hold of 1, 2, 4, 6 of them? When you do are you the only agent calling? When you get a hold of them do they look forward to hearing from y0u? Only you can answer those questions since every lead source is different.

You should be making $700 per deal average commission. Closing 1 out of 4 of these at $30 a hit is $120 for a deal. I'm willing to bet that's your ROI for closing shared leads but this is 1/1oth the headache. My good friend has only been on them for 2 weeks now but closing 1 out of 3.

I have received 2 and closed 2. I imagine I'm also good for 1 out of 3 over the long haul.

Vimo live transfers

Well I took two transfers today and closed both! The 1st transfer was just a 25 year old girl, dropped off her parents plan. I took all of her info, emailed her plans and rates, called her back at the time we set and signed her up online. Perfectly healthy except an outpatient knee procedure 4 years ago - torn AC, no issue.

Second transfer was a huband looking for coverage for his wife and two kids. His job wants over $600 a month to add them which is obviously a no-go. Wife's 34 and healthy with two kids - no meds, no conditions. I also emailed him plans and rates and he called me back an hour before the appointed time - wanted me to go over everything.

We have an appointment to meet tomorrow morning at 9am. I'm not gonna go over all the details with them then he's supposed to turn around and explain it all to his wife? Nope. The best I could have done was schedule to time to call the wife but we all know how that goes sometimes. Huband's paying - wife picks the plan. It's basically closed - he knows I'm coming over to take an app and after leaving the appointment time completely open it was him who suggested we meet tomorrow. Very solid.

Now I'm not retarded - I won't be closing every Vimo lead I get. I obviously had a horseshoe up my ass today but there's no way on earth you're closing less than 1 out of 4. I'm on this like white on rice. Oh, and I didn't even max out the bid and still got two calls. Got a buddy in MI who's steadily closing 1 out of 3.

VERY nice to have these be exclusive. I can let people off the phone to catch a breath and not worry about them getting pummeled.

My goals and my lead rant

My goals the next year have remained unchanged - I want to do 100% local advertising including sponsoring all available local events. Why don't I just do that now? Cash flow. Although I made good money now, after taxes, business and personal expenses it's not enough. I need to save up money.

I'm also extremely interested in the Vimo live transfer leads. As stated, I am absolutely not against buying leads. I'm against buying junk leads. The quality of internet leads sucked to a point with me where I was literally spending half my day calling people over and over just to write modest business. Then call centers spung up and I was now competeting with unethical slam artists.

I used to call 10 leads and have 4 to 5 pick up the phone. Then I normally was only sharing that lead with a discount rep and Mega agent. I was doing quit well, always closed 1 out of 10 and was happy to pay around $8 a pop. Then most lead companies either jacked the rates, went under (two good source I used simply said forget it when Google re-configured rates for PPC and 1st place placement) and most went to affliate programs.

SO WHAT DID INTERNET LEADS USED TO BE LIKE?

I attached the last month I had with internet leads which for me was July of 2006 - about a year and a half ago (before it all went into the crapper.)

Received 46 leads
Spoke with 27
Wrote 10

That's 58% answered and I closed one out of every 2.7 people I spoke with. I closed one out of every 4.6 leads received. What you don't see is volume. You didn't need it (and couldn't get it anyway) since they are all people actually searching for health insurance. Now you could get 46 leads and be luck to speak to 4 people. Maybe you have 2 or 3 deals - maybe you have none.

The problem with the companies that went to affiliates is they continued to charge the same rates even though quality was greatly diminished as well as their costs. What's a spam generated lead worth? About $3 to $4. The only lead worth $8 is a key word generated lead - meaning the client hopped on the net and typed in "health insurance quotes." How much is a lead worth where the prospect doesn't know or want agent contact? Next to nothing - around $1 to $2.

Affiliates have landing sites that tout "instant online quotes." Lead companies should not allow that. All landing sites should state in some way that agents will contact them. And lastly, agents should not put up with it. If you're spending over $7 for leads where the client has no idea you're calling and they're not key work driven you should write an email to that company and quit. How anyone is paying $7 to $8 per lead to have 5% or even 10% of the people pick up the phone is beyond me. All I can say is you're not very business savvy.

The Vimo live transfer has my interest peaked because I'm seeing the exact same results I used to have on my old lead system.

Forgot to mention...

For the Vimo live transfers, when your phone rings it's a Vimo rep on the other line - not the client. The Vimo rep gives you the basics - age and situation. You then determine if it's "pass or play."

I re-activated my Vimo today and forgot to pause my account - I don't want any leads yet since I'm 4 days behind on calling my telemarketed leads. But I just got a call from Vimo - rep told me he had a lady on the phone who's son just got dropped from her plan and she wantes him covered immediately.

For the internet lead people

I was on the phone with on of my agent friends in Michigan and he was going on and on about the Vimo live transfer leads - says he's closing 1 out of 4. I've known this guy for almost four years and he only sells off internet leads and only selling online - very successfully I might add. He's constantly looking for and testing new lead sources.

Vimo Live Transfer
Vimo advertises all over the place and when prospects call in they talk to a Vimo rep who then screens then for health and makes sure they want to speak with an agent. The call then goes to an agent.

Agents bid for the price so obviously the price is set by "the market" or agents. I like that a lot. By definition if they were junk or "un-closable" then over a short period of time the program would be defunct.

Right now bids are in the $35 range but that doesn't mean you have to bid that much to get a call. Agent with the highest bid simple get called first. If they don't answer it goes to the second highest bidder. If you bid on "off times" like nights or weekends you can get a good deal.

But let's take $35 as a cost point. First of all, this is an exclusive health-qualified lead (If they don't health qualify it's credited.) So the question is how much do you pay to speak to someone. And actually, the question is how much do you pay to speak with someone who WANTS to speak with an agent?

Let's say the best lead sources have a 20% answer rate. So 20 leads results in 4 people picking up the phone. At $7 per lead right there is $35 to speak to someone. And out of those 4 people who answer how many wanted to speak to an agent? None to 2. Now you're at $70 or more to speak with someone who actually wants to talk to you.

If you don't understand ROI you probably would never consider a lead for $35. If you don't have fantastic closing skills you might not want to give this a shot either. If you think this might be for you then you need to track your closing percentage of people you actually speak to.

Say you close 1 out of 30 shared leads but only talk to 6 out of those 30. In that case you would have paid $210 for 6 Vimo transfers. However, at $7 a pop you spent the exact same amount. It's kinda "don't let the math fool you."

The beauty of this to me is not having to rummage through 30 leads to find 6 people who actually want to talk to you. On some of the worse sources now only 10% are picking up the phone. Heck - that's 3 people out of 30. At $7 for 30 leads you've just spent $210 - you just don't have to scour through 30 leads.

This would only be a system for people with proven closing ability and obviously great phone skills. You also need some cake - they debit your card for ever $100 in charges. So if you want 4 leads per day you're talking about $100+ per day.

Can you get killed? Well, getting killed would be making nothing. So at $700 average commission and $35 per transfer that's 20 leads and no sales. If you can't close people who are pre-screened and and waiting on hold to talk to you then you need another career.

This is inticing to me. I'm not against internet leads at all. I'm against calling junk. If quality had not sunken so drastically I would have never shut off my leads in the first place.

I think the math will still mess with a lot of agent's heads. I think most agens would be happy to pay $2 a lead and close 1 out of 50 but wouldn't pay $20 a lead to close 1 out of 5. Sticker shock gets to you.

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Getting ready for the next phase

I'm getting the money together for the next phase of my plans which will entail 100% local marketing. I will obviously keep the telemarketed leads as long as they come in but if the past is a predictor of the future I have a few months with my marketers before they flake. It certainly beats having them for a few weeks before they flake on the old 1099 system. When and if my marketers quit I will not replace them.

To be honest, I am burt to the crisp on bugging people. It's not in my nature to pester people and a source of anxiety when I make my calls. The good obviously outweighs the bad and helping people is absoutely worth "bothering" people for 20 seconds on the phone. At least I let people off the hook quickly.

My original theory was there's enough local people interested in changing their health insurance situation to make a great living. I still believe that. All the local State Farm, Allstate and Nationwide offices can't be wrong. I'm friends now with a local agency owner who I met through my chamber. About 90% of his clients come to his office just from his local presence and referrals although he admitted it took years to accomplish that. I have the time - ain't going anywhere.

I will be doing a lot of events after the new year. Basically, if an event allows me to rent table/booth space then I'm there. This is the kind of stuff I truely enjoy anyway. I am not too well set up to sit in my office making calls. It's unbelievable boring to me. I'm a "out and about guy" which is why I did a lot of B to B and why I'm back to meeting most of my clients.

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Yes, I guess it's this easy

To be honest, I'm not much into it today. My son's off school and I'm pulling the plug now - be back at it on Friday.

I made it through about half my list, called one lead and got chewed out for not sending the info yet. This guy just started a business and cancelled Cobra due to cost. He does NOT like being without coverage and was thrilled Lisa called.

He's 37, single, healthy and just slighly overweight - 6.1 250 pds. That's GR all the way thanks to their revised weight table he's standard 2. I just emailed him my GR link and it's Copay Select, $1,500 deductible. $174 a month is a $417 commish which means a $242 profit from yesteray and I haven't done anything yet.

With this much volume I could basically write 6 deals a week by mistake.

If it can be this easy...

I'm about to call my 39 leads from yesterday and I'll post the result. What you'll see if that 1 out of 30 leads is a lay down; qualify, want and need help and close quickly. That doesn't mean I can't close better than 1 out of 30, but it's enjoyable to speak with that one person who really appreciates my help.

I can really make this work with 1 out of 30 and it's almost beating the system. I can call 30 leads in an hour - 60% answer and most of them just wanted the info. Out of 30 dials I have around 3 people who are very conversational.

Now I can imagine 30 leads a day, one hour of calls a day, close that one deal and call it a life. The math again is easy:

30 leads X $4.5 = $135
$3,500 AV per deal X 20% average commish = $700
Net = $665 X 5 days = $3,325

I only think this can only be pulled off with exclusive telemarketed leads. First of all, shared leads at $7.50 would be $225 per 30 leads and AV drops to $2,600 per deal. That's a $295 net per deal.

As you see, you can't pull off a 1 out of 30 closing ratio. You also can't pull off just calling once. Only 10% answer the phone at any given time so calling 30 shared leads means you're only speaking to 3 people.

You do indeed get a hold of more and more people as you continue to call back however at 30 shared leads a day with other agents calling you'd be completely overwhelmed within days. Within weeks you'd be buried.

Also, with the telemarketed leads I have a life. If you're not one of the 1st agents to call a shared lead you chances of closing drop substantially. That means you're glued to your computer all day. With my leads I call all of them at one shot - then my calls are over for the day unless I have a few call-backs.

I will indeed call a lead twice but then I'm done. I've already left a new message and sent an email. They've also seen my caller ID two times. Any more than that and I'm a stalker.

I talk about this over and over and over, but if you have to wake up and constantly pester old leads you will not enjoy this career. It's often discussed why the failure rate is so high. The reason it's so high is because the average agent is working 15 to 20 leads a week and simply not speaking to enough people with very high interest.

Most agents are not told the truth because their managers don't really care if they only close 1 deal that week - just so long as 20 of their other agents also closed a deal.

The truth is simple - I have not seen many agents beat 1 out of 20 for closing. Do the math - you want 3 deals a week you need 60 leads. Anything less than that and you can pound you head against the wall as hard as you want.

Kicking it up a notch

So what do you do when you have two great consistent telemarketers? That's easy - hire another one. Connie's on board and she's a pro - 3 years of at-home experience, 300 dials per day.

39 leads today between everyone and this is just insane. Actually, Jenn and Connie both apologized for working short days. I think tomorrow I should see around 50 leads.

This is all where it just becomes easy. I don't have to mess with anyone with low interest, don't have to spend days calling the same people over and over. High volume is where it's at and I just can't lose.

Even on 40 leads for the day, say I only closed 1, that's $800 in commish for $180 in cost = $620 net. Do that every day and it's $3,100. That's of course absurd - there's 2 to 3 deals out of 40 leads and that's just making one round of calls.

I'm actually closing 1 out of 18. At 40 leads a day that's 11 deals per week which should net me $6,800 per week. Very exciting just to think about that.

I can't tell you how relaxing it's gonna be to call all 39 of those leads tomorrow. This job is fun when you don't have to dig into people or pull out stupid sales tricks.