HSA telemarketing pitch

Sorry about having to move the webinar but I had a prospect move up a HSA webinar presentation. Very good presentation too - 54 year old lady, great health paying $390 through Carefirst and I can save her over $100 a month and lower her liability.

Initially she expressed a concern over paying more for her deductible - she has $750 deductible now with BX. However, what she didn't know was she also has a $2,500 OOP 80/20.

She tried to argue that point, standing firm that $750 was all she had to pay. Thanks to technology and desktop sharing I pulled up the Carefirst site and showed her she has $750 + $2,500 = $3,250 in liability.

She says "wow...I never knew that." So now she has less liability and over $1,000 a year in savings. Her only concern is her annual and I convinced her that a repriced annual is no where near $1,000.

Should be signing her up on Monday. I take my time with people and it hits when it hits. I am very uncomfortable "closing" people when they're not ready to sign up - and everyone's 6th sense tells them when they're talking to someone who's not quite there yet.

Good move to make? Crank out a "nice talking to you" letter and highlight some points you made. I mail prospects all the time. I really don't know if it has a direct effect since when I sign people up I don't ask "hey, did my letter make a difference?"

My theory is it's professional and goes far towards legitimacy. If I'm spending a lot of time with someone I can cough up the cost of postage.

I was back in the dialer today and tried a HSA script - great success. In fact, I like the HSA script far more than the "save you 30% script."

My pitch was pretty basic:

"Hi, this is John Petrowski with Maryland Health Plans. I'm calling because we're currently heavily promoting HSA health plans through the top carriers like Carefirst, United Healthcare and Time. On average they are 50% less expensive then traditional plans and I like to email you the information and rates."

When you're making calls the intro needs to be short and get to the point. If not you'll have a lot of people cutting you off - which sucks.

After a "yes" then it's time to slowly get more and more info:

1. I just need your age and zip code to work up the rates
2. Have you heard of HSAs before?
   
3. What do you currently have now?
   

As I get more and more info qualifying more and more drop out with "just send me what you have and I'll take a look at it." I'll always email the into to those people but not count them as a lead.

If they're unwilling to give me their age and zip it's pretty much over. But as you can see, I did just over 2 hours of calling today with 7 solid HSA leads.

This is cool. First of all, it's cool to have this CRM system where I'm talking to so many people I get a chance to play around with scripts. Secondly, I really enjoyed talking about HSAs to people today.

What made me feel the best was displaying to knowledge of HSAs. I pretty proficient on them, but not a total expert - need to do more research to get into some intimate details.

Webinar reschduled for Monday at 1pm

I have to reschedule today's webinar until Monday at 1pm. I have a HSA presentation to give today at that time.

Everyone who emailed me - I'll shoot you out the link on Monday. Time again:

Webinar
Monday the 18th
1PM EST
Info@marylandquotes.com to join

Webinar tomorrow and reality

We'll be having another shoot the shit webinar tomorrow:

Friday at 1pm EST info@marylandquotes.com if you want to attend

Even if you've attended past webinars I still need you to email me if you want to attend.

Now, a reality check. I got a great email from Al, a friend of mine out in CA saying he loves my blog but would like more reality about the ups and downs. I'm great about posting the ups, almost never post the downs.

First of all, here's what I got yesterday from Assurant. Yes, that's an unusually good week and I also have renewals in there.



However, my typical day is getting my ass kicked from morning 'till afternoon. I get blown off, stood up (for phone appointments) said "no" and anything else you can think off all day.

I'm on the phones in the morning calling past leads and following up. Almost all of my calls end up in:

"We haven't had a chance to look at the information but we'll call you back when we do."

"I think I'm gonna just stick with what I have now, but thanks."

"You got me at a bad time but I have your caller ID so I'll call you later."

"This all looks great but I really need to look it over and think about it. Can you give me a week or two?"

"It looks like we're gonna do this, but I don't have time right now."

That's over 90% of my calls. The truth is simple; 10K a week at 20% is six figures and 10K is only 3 deals a week. How many agents are actually making six figures? Dunno - not many.

IF you're ethical, IF you're doing a thorough pre-screen and IF you're only dealing with people where you're bettering their position 10K a week takes a LOT of work.

Don't pay attention to these agents you see doing "50K a week" selling online. Overwhelmingly they are slam artists, not agents.

Because agents avoid getting told "no" and because they avoid that they strive to speak to the least amount of people a day instead of the most amount.

I don't care what your lead source is - overwhelmingly 90% of your phone calls will end with no submitted application. A lot of people simply can't handle that and when they just start to realize those numbers they do something wrong:

They start looking at "what am I doing wrong" and second guess everything they say to prospects. And when you think what you're saying is wrong of ineffective it's a fast downward slide from there.

There's not too much you can say wrong to people who are buyers. They either really want coverage or really want to change what they have. I do far most listening them talking with people I close.

In fact, I pretty much know I don't have a deal when I'm the one talking. There's not an agent in this country closing better than 1 out of 10 leads from any source. Again, you pick up the phone and have a 90% chance of not getting the deal.

A lot of new agents look at senior agents and think we have our presentation so well honed that we get far more "yesses." No, we've simply learned to deal with high volumes of no's.

Today I have 6 people to call back to go over rates and quotes. 5 of those 6 won't go anywhere.

one shot one kill

I normally don't for for one-call closes but again, my phone rang today - even forgot to ask where she got my number but looking for coverage, one med, currently has Mega and anxious to get off.

I did a GoToMeeting and used the live desktop tool, showed her GR quotes, did the app online and it's done. Not a huge premium - $145 a month but from A to Z it took about 25 minutes. Tomorrow I'm gonna call her back and ask where she got my number.

I'm getting quite busy - I've had little ads out for months now - always put the flyers out anytime I'm out and about and I think my redesigned flyer for '08 is starting to pull. I have yet to actually go BtoB with them - just been leaving 'em in strip plazas when I'm running around.

I am very very excited about this year. I could increase my earnings by 100% if I keep tracking the way I've been going.

When it's all said and done, by April it'll be:

• Telemarketing - 8 to 10 hours a week
• Flyers at all businesses when I'm out and about
• Local events
• Redesigned quote page and work on my website for more traffic and quotes
• Mailers

I plan to crush this year. I want to be busy beyond belief. I have no eathly clue what'll happen to the health insurance market in the upcoming years but I'm certainly not gonna be left with my ass hanging out if the train comes to a stop. I'd like some cake in the bank so I could move to plan B without worrying about finances.

I'm sorry I haven't updated my Feb spreadsheet yet. I will. I use a much broader Excel sheet to track my leads and have to import only certain columns for privacy reasons and because you wouldn't be able to view it all at once. My spreadsheet has a lot of columns and I have to scroll over to see them all.

Flyer

Here's the flyer I use:

http://www.savefile.com/files/1373381

Fyers can be used many ways:

1. Going BtoB
2. Bulletin boards
3. Hand outs at events

If you're new, broke and not into telemarketing print off a stack and head BtoB. If you're doing fine with you current system it doesn't help to put them up bulletin boards.

For me, I don't do much formal BtoB since I' not new - already have renewal income. I'll go out if I'm bored but I'll also hit a strip plaza when I'm out and about. Takes literally minutes to walk into a few store and leave a flyer at the counter.

I also changed my flyer - actually many times to see if what was written had any affect on the results. It does - and dramatically. A poorly designed or mis-worded flyer will not pull hardly at all. You'll think it's the method that sucks when it's actually the flyer.

As can see, I'm advertising to call for quotes. This is because I'm tired of the web-submitted junk. There are obviously great leads through a website - those are also the same people who would have called you.

It's working well. It's cool for my phone to ring. I also have a factor that's specific to MD - MHIP. I can put anyone who's uninsurable on that program in 2 weeks - pays me $100. Although that's not huge money it at least means I can help anyone who calls and it at get some payment.

35K!

I had a fantastic week - just over $35K submitted with 7 deals. 3 of those deals were new from telemarketing, 2 were calls from flyers while and 2 were referrals. Only 3 of the 7 were telemarketed deals - the other 4 were people who picked up the phone and called me.

And by the way, this was an unusually high week. If I put in 35K a week every week it would be insane. I average $700,000 a year in volume which is only 13,000+ per week.

It's the 2 referrals I'm impressed with - I'm really trying to build a local name and it's just starting to pull results. Again, my goals have still not changed and I think there's enough people in my locality looking for health insurance to make a great living.

Telemarketing is a means to an end. I do not plan on telemarketing for years and years. It's a tool to use to get into your local market and start getting known.

Advertising without a reputation, as I've already seen, pulls low results. However, over time advertising my agency and website - as people see my name over and over and over pulls more and more and I'm just starting to see that.

I think the final key to all of this is participating in local events. Not only will that generate leads but also really get my name known in the community.

I'm more into having my phone ring then generating web traffic - which is more expensive however higher quality and a much better closing percentage. When you advertise your website "get free quotes" you're advertising for shoppers. I know that from my PPC campaigns.

However, when you're advertising to save money off your current plan you're advertising for buyers. You're also not advertising to people who currently don't have plans.

I switched my "free quotes" flyers and my website to "save money" flyers with my phone number. Web traffic obviously down, phones calls up and closing is up.

Really, my theory is kind of simple:

Put an ad out: "Maryland Health Plans - Get Free Quotes....blah blah blah"

- lacking results. No established name. No established reputation.

However:

Same ads placed every month
Doing all chamber of commerce functions
Mailers to all local small businesses
Showing up at all local events

Now someone sees that ad and it's "Oh, there's all over the place - just saw 'em at the last festival" and they now contact me.

I've been talking to a few agents lately about mailers, why most don't pull and mistakes people make when sending them. Turns out I'm a violator of everything I shouldn't have done with mailers.

I've been talking to one agent who's been pulling 1.5% which beats my typical .05%. He even admits that it's one arm of a local marketing campaign and mailers alone won't sustain an agent's income. Nice to talk to honest people instead of "here's my secret system to making a ton of money without working."

But even at 1.5% return is relatively low ROI:

1,000 mailers X 50 cents = $500
3 cents per record X 1,000 = $30
1.5% return = leads

I really hate to guess the closing out of that - 1 to 2...three would be a gift. I'd need two to make it really worth it.

They key to this of course is dumping profits back into all forms of local marketing so over time I become a recognized name.

There are things I'd like to do but I really don't know if the cost would be justified. I could pay anyone $10/hr to simply plaster businesses with flyers. They'd just leave a flyer but also be required to take a business card. So not only do I know they've actually placed the flyers but I can follow up by email or phone.

The math is impossible though; 50 flyers placed per hour X 4 hours a day is $40 a day or $160 a week with 1,000 flyers placed per week. Return? Again, low - 1% probably or 10 leads. However, $160 for 10 leads is $16 per lead - exclusive and local. These are also "phone ring" leads since my web address is just a small footnote on my flyer. Most web leads are junk.

However, does that beat mailers? 1,000 mailers would be $500+ - this would be $160.

Webinar, my son and Fidelity

Thanks to all who attended the webinar. I think it's really fun to get together and trade ideas and we'll definitely be doing it once per week.

I have to apologize that I was not my usual self - got a call this morning before the webinar from my son's kindergarten teacher that he was acting up today - which we've had issues with off and on throughout the year, and it's starting to get old.

In better news I lost a health deal but sold life! I've made it a goal this year to cross-sell life a lot more and so far it's been working very well.

For one of 10 different reasons I might not get the health deal but I've been pitching everyone on life. Most say "we're set with life" but all I need is a few deals to make it worth my while. Today was on of 'em - $42 premium and $500+ commission. Did the app online and that's that.

Another motivation for me is the upcoming election. I personally do not believe we'll see a "career altering" event in health insurance any time soon. But prove me wrong. If something goes south with health insurance, even if it's years from now I want to be well-honed and ready to go with another insurance product.

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?