Using AdWords for exposure

First of all, did a nice Coventry app. I actually did it a few days ago but I just got it faxed back today. This was a referral, lady who wanted all copays - couldn't grasp deductibles (I tried my best) and with Coventry in MD almost everything is a copay and she can get an affordable rate with a low deductible. Coventry doesn't have online apps in MD yet.

Now....AdWords - tried it about two years ago - lacking results as a lead generation tool. Very expensive now to get 1st page ranking - over $4 a click and too much junk. That being said I did indeed make a profit off the campaign. You'll think you're getting exclusive leads but what you'll see is many people hit multiple sites. Also, unlike internet leads which can be returned for credit, you not only pay every time someone clicks your site, but all the quotes with no phone, no email or uninsurable.

This is something different. When I type in the names of local towns there's almost no ads. That's because people who advertise use the product's keyword - like "smithville maryland furniture." It's pretty expensive per click to run those targeted ads. You can try to plug in 10 cents but your account won't go active.

However, not hardly anyone's advertising just using "smithville maryland" keywords since it doesn't generate targeted traffic for their product. But I'm after the exposure. So now for 10 cents a click I'm on my town and all surrounding town's searches. This is exposure, not lead generation! If you want a little exposure in your locality just Google your city/town and see how many ads are on the page. In my town and surrounding towns it's zero to 2 ads. Because of that Google basically is taking what they can get, meaning it's very cheap.

All this will be is people searching their home towns and simply seeing my business name. I could care less if they click. If they don't I have free exposure - $5 to activate an AdWords account. If they click they click - at 10 cents per click I'm golden.

Banner's up and missed opportunity

My banner's up! I did a search for my local towns and turns out one company owns "localtown"maryland.com." I actually went to this site when I first moved here and Google searched it. Now you can't be better bang for the buck than this - $25 flat per month and I'm listed in every single city and town in PG county: http://www.glenndalemaryland.com/local-businesses/metro-lookup.html?Statevar=MD&MetroCountyvar=Prince+Georges&mcpick=County&includesubs=on I'm in the "local" section.

This kills PPC (pay-per-click) since you have to worry about competitor abuse - despite Google saying they have click fraud under control. Yeah....right. This can be clicked 1,000 times or none - $25 per month, over 50 different local cities and towns. It's just great exposure and one leg of advertising. Also goes to show just how cheap this can be. Again, this is more about building name recogintion then thinking my phone's gonna ring from these banners.

Also a missed opportunity. We have the Coffee News: http://coffeenewsbowie.com/ - which is just one large double-sided page with local events and happenings and it's put out free in a ton of businesses. I've seen it a hundred times and thought "I should stick an ad in there." Well, I called today and as you can see, my competitor certainly didn't wait. I called and they have a "no competitor" rule so I have to wait until they choose to stop advertising. (the circled ad says "Afforable Health Insurance" and they're independent. )

Business breakfast

I had my community business network breakfast this morning - this wasn't the chamber of commerce - that breakfast is the 27th. I live in a very large community and they have their own group.

I was very pleasantly surprised. It was nothing I feared it would be. Everyone was just fantastic. We had nine people show and all of them ran home-based businesses; lady who made wedding and b-day cakes, photographer/videographer, dog walking/sitting service, personal training coach, etc...The highlight was the lady who ran a pole dancing business. That's right, she books a party at your house - girls only - brings a pole and they have a "girl's night out" pole party. Now....that alone was worth it to show up:-)

Basically, everyone shot the shit. We all have kids and we mainly talked about schools, sports and our kids. Very low-key, very relaxed, very fun. Everyone got 5 minutes to talk about their business. I was second to last and after I talked about what I did it was a 30 minute conversation. I now have 4 appointments from the nine who showed up. Not bad. I also booked the photographer since the last family portrait we had done was when my son was 4 - he's 6 now. Oh, and a real estate agent was there an announced that she desperately needed some part-time home-based admin help. So now her and my wife are talking - looks like a done deal. All nine of them told me I should run a seminar at the community center. I'll call today to see how I'd set that up.

Gets better. The chairman of the Piney Orchard (my community) HOA was there and talked about the monthly newsletter for all 2,500 residents and the lack of ads. What ads? We didn't know we could put ads in the newsletter! Yep....a whopping $20 gets an ad in monthly community newsletter. That's a done deal. See...this is the kind of stuff I just would never know about unless I got active. Plus, what else am I doing at 7:30am anyway? I'm up at 6am every day so it's no skin off my nose.

In other news, I got a lovely email today from the HOA of Piney Orchard Millersville - about 15 minutes from me. I put up doorhangers about a month ago and now that's all banned. It most certainly wasn't banned when I put them out and I just got off the phone with them. Everyone's fine and despite what the letter said, no specific complaints were directed at me and I do NOT put flyers on mailboxes! They knew that. However, from now on, as the letter states, no more anything on doors or a nice little fine will occur. Not a problem at all. It's not just me - no pizza menus, Chinese food menus, or anything on the door at all.

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Why don't we advertise?

I don't know of a single independent agent who advertises. I know a few (very few) financially successful agents who either buy shared leads or telemarketed leads. That being said, I'm sure there are many independent agents out there who are advertising. Why don't we hear from them? Probably because they're actually busy.

I've done some ads and local stuff in the past; ran a small ad for $250 in a regional paper - got about 6 calls and closed a deal. I didn't run the ad again. Why? I made around $500 off that deal and netted $250. I not only should have renewed, I should have placed it in three more papers. Over time that ad would have pulled more and more. Our problem? We are looking for immediate return.

I did a health fair in 2004 - ran about 4 hours and got around 5 deals from it. The table cost $150 and I made around $4,000 off it - but I got those deals over the course of the next six weeks so psychologically it didn't appear as if it was successful. I'd say $150 returning $4,000 is successful. But at the time my focus was on tomorrow; get me leads today that will result in deals tomorrow. Basically, a short-sighted marketing plan. Here are things I've been heavily researching:

Advertising

*Local ads are cheap. Stay local. Regional and states ads are very expensive and your ad gets lost with the other 100 ads and has no impact.

*Advertise on all your local websites. Search "your town" on Google and chances are your town or city has pages you can put links or ads. In my area they are very cheap. On top of getting some leads you're building name recognition.

*Look for advertising opportunities in local businesses. Local restaurants might have ad space, in my area you can advertise on shopping carts, etc...

What you're looking for is the "compounding" factor. It's not that one ad in the local paper, it's not the ad on the shopping cart or the ad on your community website - it's finally people putting it together: "Oh...so this is where I go for health insurance." Or you're talking with a prospect and they say "Oh! I just saw your ad!"

The irony is you can do all this for less than a lot of agents spend on leads. I know agents spending $500 a week on leads. That same money could go extremely far in your locality.

I think what it all comes down to is fear. Fear that you'll have ads everywhere and no calls, no business. What you're failing to realize is health insurance is a huge concern. And article I read last year said health insurance is one of the top three concerns among small business owners.

Issues with turning prospects into clients are mainly trust and legitimacy. Once those two issues are solved I personally believe business will explode. You solve both by having a strong community presence backed up by a good ad campaign. Word spreads by servicing your clients well. You think you're getting referrals from someone you pressured? You think they want their friends and family to go through that?

The only people who will refer you are people who "buy" from you, not people you "sold." This is why I think referrals in this biz are very lacking. They are nowhere near the levels they should be. Agents in this biz after 5 years should be able to live just off referrals. They obviously don't because they must "sell" their clients. Prospects didn't seek them out - they were hunted down. The problem? Most agents must sell their prospects to make a living because they are not in contact with enough people who simply want to buy.

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Assurant is insane

Got back from my appointment a little bit ago - very smooth. She owns a home-based child care business and we had a great meeting. She signed up and it already instantly approved. I'm also stunned that the deal I put in this morning is already approved! That was technically a standard issue since the surgery that corrected the endometriosis was just over three years ago (which is standard according to the guidelines) and hypothyroidism which is standard.

So we have a nice busy day, ran two closed two, both business owners and $6,540 in AV for $1,635 in commish today.

Could I have just done this all in my office? Maybe....maybe not. The point is this: Would you work a nice solid day, meet with your clients with none of them being over a 20 minute drive for $1,635? I would. I'm done today - been done for over an hour, wife is downstairs making dinner and tonight's spent with my family. No phone calls, no following up, no emails, no nothing. Call people, set an appointments, go meet 'em.

Anyone reading along, this is just my system. You can do what you like and if it ain't broke don't fix it. For newer agents or for agents who who are trying to make this work for them:

*Only work exclusive leads. Generate them B to B, flyers, telemarketing, community involvement, trade shows, fairs.

*See all of your clients

If you do those two things you'll have a very nice life. If you try to to figure out a lazier way to make it work then:

*You'll spend your days chasing down people who don't want to talk to you.

*You'll constantly be defending yourself and have to warn clients about competitors

*Years from now you'll be at your computer waiting for your next batch of leads to come in.....that is, if they're still affordable or if that one "good" source you're using doesn't go under

*You won't be signing up business owners

Busy, and love'n it

Almost 4 years into this biz and I was definitely in a rut. I simply work best when I'm extremely busy - kinda the "objects in motion..." thing. I also do poorly when I find myself bored. And let's face it - are any of us gonna do marketing tasks we simply don't enjoy? I'll telemarket if I have do, but it's nothing I looking forward to. Is it effective? Sure. Same with internet leads - they're also effective. I always wrote business off leads but again, not a task I really enjoyed.

I'm not a fan of hunting people down who don't want to hear from me. I'm less of a fan of talking to prospects who aren't business owners. That doesn't mean all of my clients will be owners. But if you're not, then you can pick up the phone and call me. I'm not hunting you down. On a scale of 1 to 10 my patience is -2 for people who really don't want to use my services.

But now that I've shifted gears I find myself getting very busy and my attitude has picked up significantly. I met with and signed up the owners of the auto repair place this morning. I had that meeting last week but they rescheduled. Because I went there I was introduced to two of their employees who also want coverage. Also, not a shot in the world I'd have signed them up online. Husband 50, wife 47, both smoke, wife on a med, recent surgery and recovered endometriosis. We went over plans for 30 minutes. Now I'm outta here around 3:30 today to sign up the owner of a day care.

I know the local focus will work however that assumes you have a very large community. I'm not sure what I'm doing could be pulled off in "small town" America - maybe. I'm between Baltimore and Wash DC and the business community is simply huge.

The title of is is branding an agency starting with $200. I have yet to spend that. I had some marketers and only one logged in any real amount of hours - not $200 worth. Aside from that I've been telemarketing and quite honestly, working on old leads. These were people I tried to sign up online who I'm now scheduling meetings with. That will pull me through nicely on top of referrals and chamber of commerce events until I get into advertising and renting space at local events.

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Absolutely positively on the right track

I had an offer I couldn't refuse to try out an internet leads source - basically free leads. Still, I said no twice but they called me and I gave in. What the heck...some free leads. Well....here we go, typical junk. Basically, all young girls, almost calls straight to voicemail and it wouldn't matter anyway to end up closing that very sough-after $88 a month premium. I actually have two of these working, then will promptly cancel the leads. What an insane waste of time to call people all day and hit voicemail.

These are:
*Not business owners
*Not looking for health insurance (looking for quotes which is much different) *Under 30 years old

Now for the polar opposite, I got listed today in my chamber's directory and got a call. Very nice lady ownes a travel agency (above pic) and her rate is through the roof - she's 63 and paying over $1,200 a month for coverage with decent health. So we compare a bevy of leads coming in which are junk and I have to hunt them down or my phone ringing from a business owner who wants health insurance. Hmmmmmmm. Toughie.

I also signed on as a volunteer today to help man the art & crafts booth my chamber is holding on the Sat. the 29th. After I signed up I was told that I can bring a flyer or any give-away to put in a bag that everyone gets when they enter the fair. Very cool! I also signed up for a business newtorking breakfast at 7:30 on the 27th.

And for all of you who are following along who are still hooked on the idea of 100% of your business coming from shared leads, my question is - what will you be doing in 5 years? Most likely, the same thing I'm doing; kicking myself in the ass that I didn't create a strong local presence years ago.

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Hit the trifecta

Great day! Did an Aetna, Assurant and Blue Cross app. Two were leads I telemarketed, one was a referral. It's very refreshing to devote my entire day to insurance activities and furthering my business and as of now I think I'm really on the right track to be a recognized local agency. Of course the big step doesn't come until early next year when I rent store-front space.

Actually, the next big step is a half or full-page ad in local publications which is over a month away. The great thing about local ad rates is they're cheap. I can get a half-page ad in one of my city's local papers for $150 a week. This beats trying to put a 1/16th of a page ad in some huge 100 page newspaper that frankly no one would see - has no impact at all.

I'm looking great next week - five appointments set already and all before Wednesday. Also starting next week I'll be involved in local business meetings. I have business breakfast for my community and I have another breakfast for the chamber of commerce. That one I'm especially looking forward to since new members get to introduce themselves and tell everyone what we do.

Oh, and I got my DOI trade name for Maryland Health Plans today so I can officially go by that name! I think this is important since my agency name basically states what I do - "Health Solutions" did not.

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Paying off

I'll tell ya, it's nice to have a plan, and in my case, theory, and see it start to work out. I joined my community business association which got me a listing on the website and already, here's what I hoped would happen; people seeking out health insurance coming to me.

My theory is simple; Out of 10 people at least 6 would happily change something about their coverage. Most of these people simply do nothing thinking "it is what it is." Others do nothing because they simply don't know where to start. If an agency had a high profile in the area and became well known I think the amount of possible business would be amazing.

We are busy chasing down leads submitting by people who don't live close to us and in the meantime countless people in our community have no faint clue as to who to contact for health insurance.

Chamber of Commerce already pays off!

I guess two things to note: 1) Join your local Chamber. 2) If your client is close, go see them. I had an appointment with a Century 21 real estate agent literally 5 minutes from me - debated about doing it online. That would have been a mistake.

I went to the office and she bought a plan. She grabbed her friend, got her in the office and she bought a plan! Then said I should talk to the owner since they don't offer health. While waiting for the owner (odd title since it's a pseudo-franchise type of arrangement) I noticed the Chamber plaque on the wall. We shook hands and I said I just joined and got approved. Complete attitude shift from what I've ever seen before; "So you're a chamber member?" We talked about some upcoming events we're both attending and it was an "owner to owner" conversation instead of "owner to pesky insurance agent." You know the normal drill - it would be "well that sounds great....have a card?"

Now he wants me to come in next week and do a presentation in front of the rest of the agents. He also said he can't wait to introduce me to several friends of his since health insurance comes up during conversations. There are five other insurance agencies in that local chamber - none of which offer heatlh. It's outfits like Allstate, Nationwide and other places that focues on P&C, life, disability and employee benefits.

Also, the chamber has a monthly newletter and for $20 to $40 per month you can buy rather large ad space. I'm in - got a 40 buck-er and it'll run next month - so that's every business owner seeing my ad for 40 whopping bucks.

It's worth noting the two agency owners I highly respected told me to go this route in 2004. But I was too smart for that - I'm gonna sign up 28 year-olds online and get rich.

Hey, anyone reading this don't get me wrong. Go buy leads all you want - but use it to supplement your business - don't make it your entire business. It should be one of many sources of business. If it's your exclusive source of business you'll find yourself chasing down leads 5 years from now. And if you stopped the leads on Tuesday, you're out of business on Wednesday.

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Getting more local

I again re-visit the theme of this to remind those reading along that the goal is to establish a local agency where my business is based on local advertising and becoming part of the community. I also think there's a big difference between promoting "free quotes" and promoting your business. Any can drive quote traffic to their site and it's still people who don't want to be contacted. That's not what I'm after.

Picking up the phone and chasing down 20 quote requesters - 75% of whom are trying to avoid you is a lacking marketing plan. I will still offer quote requests but my quote page will be re-configured to let people know before filling out the form that they will be contacted by me and I'll want them to choose the best time. It won't be a perfect system but it will at least let people know they won't see instant quotes, and a video on that page will explain why. I see little value on showing people rates they can't get.

I've filled out applications for two local chambers of commerce and advertised on a few local websites. I'm meeting with a Yellow Pages ad rep next week so talk about local print and internet ads.

I put an ad out today to hire people to put up the residential postcard/flyers which I've done before with lacking results. The main problem was finding people to actually work and managing those who did work. However, now that my son's in school my wife is freed up to help me and that's all the difference.

The residential flyers pull .005 (half of 1%) and I've been slapping them up for about three years as a supplement to other marketing. It's not something that can be done in all areas since you need townhomes to make the math work.

Math:
Flyers are 3 cents a piece
1,000 placed is 5 leads
$12/hr for labor and 200 per hour placed
Closing is 1 out of 5 - they are very high-quality leads

So a 10 hour week is $120 in pay, gets 2,000 flyers put up which cost $60 for a total expense of $180. It's 10 leads and two deals. Even if it was one deal it's still extremely worth it. Can I lose money? Not really. The entire box of 5,000 is $150 in cost and putting them up would require 25 man hours X $12/hr = $300 + the $150 = $450 total. I make twice that off one deal.

That breaks down to $18 per lead and internet leads are far cheaper....right? No. I get in contact with all 10 of those leads hence the 1/5 closing ratio. When you get 20 leads you only get in contact with around 30% of them. So at $8 per shared lead X 20 leads = $160 however if you only spoke with 6 those leads now it's 6 into $160 or $26 per lead! So it's $26 to speak with someone and then 3 or 4 others agents also get a crack. Ummmmm, no.

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Always confirm appointments

8am: I set an appointment at the end of last week for 8:30am - owners of a auto repair shop about 20 minutes from me. They were closed yesterday so I couldn't confirm. There are those out there who teach to never confirm - just run the appointment. The theory is if you call that gives 'em a chance to back out. First of all, if the deal is so weak that just calling them to confirm leads to them back out then good; just saved me a lot of time. However, in this case they're still interested but when I called only the husband was in. The wife had an issue at home and isn't gonna be in until 10am. So I'd have done the whole suit and tie thing, driven out there and likely been trapped into doing a one-legger.

12:30: Set two more appointments this week, re-set this morning's for Thursday and scrubbed a 4pm I had today. I called to confirm and I could just tell by the conversation it would be a wasted trip. His words: "Well you can still come but right now we're still deciding what to do and we'll be looking more into it next month." Errrr! People can get excited sometimes when you set up a time to meet, but then husband and wife sit down and simply decide they're not at the right time to make a move. I respect that. However, running those appointments is uncomfortable at best. I do not like "closing" anyone and hate that kind of tension. People purchase plans from me - I do not "sell" them and there's a difference. In any case, I let him off the hook and I could how upbeat he got. Why "force" people to meet with you. It's just a waste of everyone's time.

Community involvement

Well I got a list of the businesses that will be at my community network breakfast next week and was interested to see Nationwide and Allstate. This is what these guys do - they are simply involved in the community, not cold-calling all day.

Although I'm excited to get involved in local events and the chamber of commerce it's not all about just getting business. It's really about being a part of my community and not just leeching off it it. You can cold-call or buy leads but you are only gaining business for yourself and not giving anything back. I've been at this for four years and have never really felt like a legitimate business owner. I don't think you can unless it's a give and take between getting business from community, but also giving back.

I see a lot of agents kid themselves - thinking they are "helping people" by selling insurance. Yes, in one way we do indeed help people. But when I think if helping people I think more about Habitat for Humanity then insurance agents. When I was a Mega agent (God forgive me!) they has a cheesy saying; HOPE - helping other people every day. Lol. I think if you want to "help people" you need to hit the grocery store and buy some food then take it down to you local soup kitchen. If you really want to help then you volunteer at the kitchen.

I've very interested in simply bettering my life all around and getting involved in a local charity. I can't think if anything more distasteful then getting involved in a charity with the motive of gaining business, so at any charitable event I simply won't discuss at all what I do. What I'm even more interested in is starting an extremely small charity myself. I'd like to do something to help children in the hospital along the lines of bringing in cool toys - maybe hand-held video games so they can have something do to besides watch tv. I was in the hospital as a kid for 5 days and basically it's only TV between family visits.

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Well, not too bad

Not too bad of a week. Not fantastic either. I figure this represents about a third of what I'm capable of once I get involved in the community and start doing community-based advertising. Nice thing about this check is zero marketing expenses.

Heck, it wasn't too long ago that I was making half that selling cars, working 10 hour days on average including every Saturday while putting up with the management Jedi mind games.

I simply love this line of work. No nights, no weekends, no office politics, can't get laid off. It's also the only sales job I've had where I'm truley helping people. Plus, I don't play well with others anyway so it's not like I would have ever made it in the corporate environment. The single largest problem with this line of work is simply self-motivation and getting down to work.

Ok, off to go bike riding with my son.

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Meeting with clients vs phone - be flexible

1st day of solid work in a long time - felt great. I signed up online for the AA county chamber of commerce which appears to be a very active group. I also researched a few upcoming 5K and 10K races and emailed the organizers about being one of the sponsors.

What's really great is I set 4 meetings for next week. There's a huge "meet vs online" debate regarding sign-ups. My advice? Don't commit to just one system. If you're just signing clients up online and never meeting with them you're losing business. Period. It's not a matter of what you're writing, it's a matter of what you're not writing. You can be proud and write 4 deals in a week online and great - you made fantastic money. You also missed another 4.

Does that mean meet with everyone? No. It means use your 6th sense. I'm meeting with all families and older clients and signing up the younger singles online. Out of the 4 appointments I booked for next week, three would never materialize online. Even if they did it would be a nightmare.

My goal is simple - set 10 meetings a week, run 8, close 5. Anyone else I'll sign up online. I have 4 appt's set so far, 6 more to go. This is all 100% local marketing and all of my appointments are in my area.

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3 ways to generate leads is key

First a note; I'm not gonna be moderating or posting on the insurance forums because it's simply taking up too much of my time that needs to be spent on insurance activities. That being said, if anyone reading this blog doesn't know, the insurance-forums.net is the single best resource of unbiased information for insurance agents. I strongly recommend joining if you need advice.

There's also some confusion regarding my marketing and too many people think I'm changing strategies too often. I have been and will continue to do telemarketing, business to business and residential flyers. I'm just not gonna talk about all three every day. I also try to focus more on things everyone can do. Not everyone has townhomes to put up flyers and not everyone lives near a large city for effective B to B. I'm scared if I talk too much about that some people will say "Well that's nothing I can do so I guess I need to get out of the business."

Telemarketing is the most effective and free. But I'm not always in the mood to make calls and it's at those times when it's imperative to have other marketing activities. I bought 5,000 postcard/flyers for $129 (pictured) and I've got about 300 or 400 handed out. I keep a batch in my car and hand them out when I'm out and about. It's not really a dedicated marketing activity but they fit in your pocket so they're easy to hand out. I wrote one deal so far from them, I have about 4,000 left and at $129 I've already made a great profit.

Regarding comments. I try my best to live in a positive environment and am in the process of improving on that. I welcome comments of support or if you want advice. I will not be publishing negative remarks. This is a blog to simply track my activities and people can have some fun reading along, but my marketing methods and plans I sell are not up for debate here.

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Active!

Submitted yesterday, three pre-ex conditions including two meds, offer issued today, accepted offer and it's active! Asurant just rocks. If you can't write Assurant in your state for some reason I really feel for you. With any other carrier this app would have had two riders and loss of drug coverage = no deal. With Assurant it's issued next day. Only other way to go on this app would have been Aetna - for double the rate and less coverage.

Steps towards being community based

First, got my offer on the app I put in yesterday. 24 hour turn-hour ain't bad! I already knew the decision so the offer's already been accepted.

I also registered for a business breakfast in my community. This is the stuff I've normally never done but I'm spending part of each day researching local events and things like this.

My next step now is I want to start sponsoring 3K and 5K races. I've run in a few 5Ks and normally the sponsors get a table set and all the runners come by to see what's up. It's like a mini trade show with give-aways but it doesn't tie up your whole day or weekend. Most of these races are Sunday morning.

I'm thinking of T-shirts with "Maryland Health Plans" and my web address. I think that might be pricey so I'll have to find out the cost. If not I'll look for other give-aways.

Yet another fantastic day!

Had my meeting this morning and sold an Assurant HSA. This was one of those cases where if I didn't drive out there I would have lost the deal. At bare minimum a HSA sale would have been a nightmare over the phone. We got a pad and pen and did a lot of math for about 15 minutes before he realized that a HSA was the best way to go. I also had to do a line-by-line comparison with his Kaiser plan.

He's now saving over $300 a month in premium, doesn't have to mess with riders and all meds are covered and count towards the deductible.

Another benefit with meeting clients is building a relationship. We really hit it off well and ended up just shooting the shit for a half hour or so. Now he's referred me to his sister who also owns a business, invited my family to his restaurant for free dinner and while there wants me to talk to two managers who both don't have any coverage. You just can't build that same type of relationship with people over the phone. I'm now saying everything will be in-person. You simply need to use common sense.

Also got out another 200 flyers residential today so all in all it was a great day. $1,500 in commission so far this week by Tuesday which isn't too shabby. My marketers are toast so everything this week has been almost zero cost.

Back to basics - very nice start to the week

Great day doing my own local calls. 2 hours of calling and 12 leads. I was actually slammed today with customer service and had planned on making 4 hours of calls. I still get a bit apprehensive before I make calls which is stupid since I know I actually enjoy talking to business owners once I'm on the phone. I really had some fantastic conversations today and can definitely help out a few of them.

I also got a very nice referral today. One of my client's daughters got a job and they want over $200 a month taken out of her check for group coverage. No dice so I got her an Assurant plan for $125 and it was issued about 20 seconds after we applied online - she already printed out her cards. Insane. Referrals are simply a fantastic aspect of this business.

I confirmed my appointment tomorrow at 11am with the owner of a local Lido's Pizza. He currently has Kaiser in the high $600's and I'm gonna show him an Assurant HSA in the low $400's. The only health issue is hypertension which is a non-issue for Assurant.

I just need to stick to 150 dials per day, generate 15 local leads per day and just set appointments. If I'm gonna really build up a local name for myself my days of marketing outside my locality are over.

I really feel excited and like I'm on the right track. I could just continue getting leads and closing deals like I've been doing for the last 4 years but remember that my goal is not to just contact leads and write business. My goal is to establish myself as a name brand in my area.

I know a lot of agents who have been in this business far longer than me and they're doing quite well. But they're also contacting leads all day and I simply don't want to be here 5 years from now chasing down leads.

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