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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Some important steps

I did a pretty big review today and made some changes so I can get to my goal faster. The first was changing my agency name - which I've wanted to do for quite a while. I was the Health Solutions Agency however "health solutions" doesn't say anything about what I do and would be difficult to brand. My new business name is "Maryland Health Plans" which gets right to the point. I filled out the DOI trade name paperwork and faxed it today.

I hammered out a deal with a very good friend of mine who's in the small group market. I also want to offer group but don't know much about the market and need training. So when I'm telemarketing I'm gonna hit owners up for group or individual quotes then pass along all the group leads to Bruce. We'll commission split but he'll also train me.

I also got back to work calling local businesses with great results. I have an in-person appointment on Tuesday with the owner of a Lido's Pizza. I'm back to face-to-face appointments for all local prospects. I not only enjoy in-person meeting better but the closing ratio is twice as good as online.

I also got out 200 flyers today in residential areas. I've been putting out flyers for years and the results have always been good - it's just a bit of physical effort getting them up. The math on flyers is easy - I get one deal per 1,000 placed and it takes me an hour to put up 200.

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Not enough leads

Well it's Friday and I'm not getting anywhere close to the 30 leads a day I need. Since my goal is not to merely get leads and sell I'm just gonna take control of the rein and telemarket, set in-person appointments and get the money I need to take the next step. I'm not thrilled to cold-call but I'm effective and quite frankly can make more money a lot faster.

If just getting leads was the goal I'd hire a few more marketers but I really don't see the point. I just need more money so I can start my ad campaign.

Generating local leads

Doing well this week - 2 applications written and 9 more phone appointments set. The marketers are all over the place and don't work every day so the leads are inconsistent. The last time I telemarketed my own area was around 8 months ago with great success - nothing beats telling people where you live and people have more trust in a local agent. I think 8 months is enough time to market my area again.

I'll be on the phones again myself since I don't want telemarketers calling my own area - those calls are very easy to make.

I'm also still bored sitting in the house all day and one thing I really enjoy about local marketing is face-to-face appointments. I do quite well with phone sales but the closing percentage is at least double when you meet face to face. Selling over the phone takes experience and unique skills. I don't think anyone new in this business should attempt phone sales. If you give it a shot and it doesn't work at least back off and start in-person meetings.

If you're wondering why I don't just meet all my clients it's because of distance. When you have 3 or 4 marketers calling and they've been calling for months (I've been using telemarketing now for just over a year as either a main source of leads or supplement or other sources) you obviously go farther and farther away from your area. Right now I have marketers calling southern MD and I'm not driving 3 hours each way for an appointment.

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Very productive day!

Well, I have 62 leads total starting from Friday the 10th which averages out to be 10 leads a day. I need 30 a day however I just took on Andrea today and have Daryl coming on board tomorrow.

It takes me on average two weeks to close a deal which is by my design. I want business owners who are highly interested, knowledgeable and have current coverage. My normal system is a series of 4 to 5 calls.

However, I did get a deal today. Single guy, business owner 55 years old and basically wanted copays for everything. He definitely wasn't going for a HSA pitch - which is my favorite plan. I sold him Coventry at $228 per month. To be fair, how I'm I gonna pitch this guy a HSA when a copay plans is only $228?

I also set 8 appointments today so over all it was hiring another marketer, one client gained, 8 appointments set and now working with 62 leads. Very nice.

First marketer gets the boot

30 leads a day is what I need which takes around 5 marketers. I have three now, two more getting hired today. However, looks like a have a wrench getting thrown in the works. I got 4 leads on Friday from one of them and these are the emails:

duckpinquee123@comcast.net
lindarosenthal123@comcast.net
jobjob123@gmail.com

Notice a pattern?

I mean, common! That's not even trying! Heck, at least try to be clever about it. The good news is I don't prepay - they work a week then I cut them a check. So obviously she's toast and won't be paid on those leads.

Re-stated goals

I find it important after a few emails to re-state my goals. I am 4 years into selling health insurance and be it internet leads, telemarketed leads or whatever source you can name I, and many other agents, are still basically chasing down people who don't want our help. You can purchase leads or telemarket and what you'll find is the overwheming majority of leads are not looking for health insurance.

If everyone plugging their info into a quoting site knew an agent would call then you would not receive 90% of your leads. The truth is when people hit a quoting site they think it's gonna be like Ehealth where they simply see quotes on the next page.

Ironically, hundreds of people in my locality are seeking out and obtaining health insurance. So while I pound the phones someone a few blocks away is looking for coverage.

The telemarketing I'm using is the means to an end. And that end result is a local agency with a physical location with all leads being generated by ads using various media and over time establishing a stong community presence.

This will take time and money. I have started by making calls myself and am now at the step of farming it out. My next step will be building more income and slowing taking that money and putting it into community advertisements.

The title of this is "branding" a health insurance agency. Simply put, that means over the course of time I'd like my agency to be a household name in my area as the place to go for health insurance.

22 leads!

All three marketers did well today with Sherri proving to be extremely good. 22 leads today and well on my way to my 30 lead per day goal. Again, the math:

Close 1 out of 30 initially (more will come out of the woodwork later)
$4 per lead X 30 leads = $120
$3,500 average AV X 25% = $875
$875 - $120 = $755 net profit
$755 X 5 days = $3,775

If you're thinking closing 1 out of 30 is bad, remember that they are completely unqualified leads. I don't have my marketers asking any qualifying questions. I'm also only looking for clients who want to use my services. If I was a bit more heavy-handed with my sales approach I would probably squeeze 1 out of 20.

I'm hiring two more marketers next week which should get me the 30 leads a day I'm looking for.

Still messing with the marketers

Today was mainly spent getting my three marketers off the ground. Maggie's still sick but got me 2 leads. Annetta said she could only work an hour today and got 2 but thankfully Sherri was back on the job and got 10. I was actually hoping for over 25 today but I'll take the 14.

I find myself working best when I'm busy and there's a lot to do. I only got that one batch of 18 leads on Friday and nothing since until today. I have two solid deals working from that initial batch but nothing going today, so I basically screwed around today. I need at least 30 leads per day to keep my energy up and I really don't care if I have to hire 5 more marketers to get there.

The system

Alright, all in all a decent day. I have Maggie and Annetta starting tomorrow for telemarketing. Haven't heard from Sherri today but if she doesn't produce today or tomorrow she's toast. It's no skin off my nose to hire another marketer. Some agents don't like hiring and managing marketers. I actually enjoy it.

I've followed up on all the 18 leads I got on Friday and the results are above. This is what it's all about - just a ton of junk but the gems pay off. I know agents who don't get 18 leads in an entire week. It's over before it starts. I've only called this list once - 11 out of 18 picked up. That's about right for the 1st call. Out of the 11 I've already toasted 7 of 'em. I don't play around. They either want my assistance or they don't. That doesn't mean they have to tell me they're gonna sign up now - just that they're interested enough to want my services. I'll get the other 7 tomorrow. I get in contact with over 95% of my leads since they're small biz owners.

One thing you'll notice about my spreadsheet is three categories; deal, appointment or dead. I don't not follow up with anyone or allow the "call me back later" bs. I do not spend my days calling people who are trying to avoid me. When I get in touch with someone it's one of two things:

1) An appointment to set up a future call to go over plans and rates
2) Dead

There is no middle ground. If I hear "You really caught me at a bad time" My reply is "That's fine. Just give me a specific time to call back when you have about 10 minutes." If they say crap like "this week is bad"then it's marked "dead." I will indeed follow up by email but never by phone again. What I will do is months later give my old lists to my marketers and have them go through it again. Sure....go ahead and call them back next week: "What? I caught you at ANOTHER bad time?" Go figure.

There's a few health issues and a few on group with employees (I don't mess with group when employees are on.) I had one lady already paying $120/mo - she's better off staying put.

Just when it's looking ugly I call Wanda and we have a phone app't tomorrow morning to over over plans. The best one however is Brenda paying $1,700 a month just for her and her husband. Perfectly healthy but they have a HMO - no deductible hence the horrid rate. She's been wanting to get cheaper coverage for a while. We really connected and spent almost an hour on the phone. That's over - phone appointment this Thursday to sign them up.

Things to mention:

*These are exclusive to me - I don't have a pack of wolves descending on my prospects
*I can concentrate on positive conversations instead or warning them about other agents/plans
*These people are the best clients - they are not trolling the net and actually have money.
*These are business owners who are savvy and understand health insurance.
*Almost all of leads leads are age 45 and older. I don't spend 2 weeks chasing "Becky, age 26" and her $82 a month premium.
*I can relax with these people. They aren't going anywhere.
*These leads cost me $4 a pop.

Short update

I got Maggie hired and trained but by the time she was up and running it was past 3pm. She made just a few calls and got a quick lead so she's actually excited for today. Sherri didn't work yesterday which accentuates the point that you need at least three marketers if you want consistent leads.

I was going to hire Laurel yesterday but she hasn't gotten back to me since Friday - no returned calls or emails. I'm looking for marketers who need the money so I'll be hiring Annette today instead. She's left 3 messages on my machine and several emails stating that she needs to start as soon as possible. When you're hiring marketers you'll find that if they don't need the money they won't work out too well.

2 more hired and Sherri kicks it out!

Sherri did a great job for me today - 18 leads in 4 hours! She hit the bonus rate of $15/hr so my per-lead cost is $3.33. If anyone knows where they can get exclusive leads from mainly business owners for $3 a pop let me know. Leads are all about volume and there's no such thing as a qualified leads. The hunt for the "qualified" lead will leave you broke and frustrated. I like dealing with high volumes of telemarketed leads because:

*ROI is fantastic: $4 per lead close 1 out of 30 = $120 cost returning an average of $800
*You're busy all day with high volume which keeps your attitude up
*You only work with highly interested people and not get jerked around
*You don't have to battle some wad selling junk plans, discount plans like you do with shared leads. You can relax and take your time with clients without worrying about someone else trying to pull the carpet out from under you.

When you're dealing with low amount of leads you have to milk them for everything they're worth. That's a frustrating day. Also, do NOT hire a telemarketing service!!! You have little to no control over quality. My marketers work for me. I dictate quality and set the parameters.

I also hired two more marketers today - Maggie and Laurel who will both start on Monday. I'm looking for 30 leads a day and close 1 out of 30. That means I call 30 people and only work with people who highly regard my services. All the "I'm busy now so call me back late next week" people get kicked to the curb. They get Constant Contact follow-ups (automatic emails.)

30 leads a day X 5 days = 150
$4 per lead X 150 = $600
Average AV is $3,500 X 25% commish = $875
$875 X 5 deals = $4,375 - $600 = $3,775 per week net

I could close 3 deals out of 150 leads and still net $2,025 per week.

Hiring telemarketers

Ok, the title of this is starting an agency with $200. Actually, as far as starting money it's less then that. My only costs so far have been $9.95 on http://goleads.com $14.95 on http://ringcentral.com (for my toll free number) $19.95 for http://efax.com (I have efax professional with a toll free number) and that's it - just $44.85.

Now it's time to take the money I've made from telemarketing and farm it out. For an agent, I would highly suggest just making calls yourself. But I'm trying to start an agency so I won't have 3 to 4 hours a day to telemarket. I hired Sherri yesterday and she downloaded Goleads that I paid for - another $9.95. All she's gonna do is call small business owners, say there's new plans available from the top carriers and ask if they want to details emailed to them. I'll sort it out on my end. I'm paying $12/hr flat plus $15/hr for 4 leads or more per hour. The lowest amount I've generated per hour with a zero qualification script is 6. I'm also hiring 2 more marketers today.

Still tracking

Everything's on course and it's exciting to see this all slowly coming together. I touched on this briefly before but the end result of this is a local agency designed for new agents. Newly licensed agents really have no place to start. A very soft touch script: "....would just like you to see the newest rates and plans" works fine. It generates a high amount of interest and qualifying them on the 2nd call takes 10 seconds and is very easy.

Right now I'm putting together a state-of-the-art training website. It's not instead of training, but as a supplement. All of my hiring and training is going to be done in person. However, new agents need to place to go to study. It's all going to be video-based - very little text. I'll have videos that go over all the plans, underwriting and videos on marketing and closing.

I'm designing my agency to be unique. I've been in sales for a long time and I'm taking bits and pieces of former companies I've worked with. Here are some specifics:

*Everyone will be under my agency for Assurant, Golden Rule and World. However, they will be independent and free to write for any other company. As my agency does more production I can qualify for Aetna and Blue Cross GA contracts.

*Bonuses, contests, competitions for fun and excitement.

*Top commissions to entry-level agents. When new agents make money everyone wins. When GAs try to stroke new agents no one makes money. Agents eventually wise up and come to know the commission structure anyway. If they feel they've been stroked you lose respect. I don't want a "turn it and burn it" outfit. I want agents with me for their entire tenure in insurance. If some agents want to manage and have their own "teams" I'll make that available.

*For new agents meeting are daily. I have not been involved with any sales organization that didn't have daily meetings. After training is over, meetings are once a week. However, I want to have lunch meetings where everyone meets at a restaurant. I think the cost will be negligible; even 20 agents a $15 a pop is only $300.

*Training and this is a pet peeve of mine. I received more training to sell cars and home improvements then health insurance. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't for GAs. You can put a lot of time and effort into training and almost no business gets written. Because of that most GAs ends up saying "screw it - here's the brochures now go write business." Now you need to hire hordes of agents to get a few deals and the very few agents who are writing don't know their ass from a hole in the wall.

*I'm going to be heavy-handed. I know this will probably stir some controversy but I take paying bills seriously. You either have the work ethic and personality to do this or you don't. I've seen agents make nothing or close to nothing for months while being strung along by their "managers" who are just looking for 100 people to each write a deal. I will not allow that. I'll hold their feet to the fire for the first few weeks and if they don't have what it takes it's time to part ways.

I've seen new car salesmen toasted on the 1st day. The manager will ask how many "ups" they took. The newbie says "Ummm, none." Manager says "So you've walked around the floor for 8 hours and haven't greeted anyone?" Newbie: "Ummm, no." Manager; "We'll it's been nice working with you." Do not waste time on people devoid of a work ethic. They drag you and the entire organization down. These are also the same knuckleheads to try to neg everyone out. They also love to get around other newbies: "Man....this really sucks doesn't it." Gone.

Here's my take on training. When training is lacking one of two messages are sent:

1) That is a joke and just get the damned deal.
2) No one makes it so why should I put any effort into this.

My training is going to be every day for two weeks, 4 hours a day. For the 1st 3 hours it's telemarketing to generate leads. Then a one hour break. Then it's 4 hours of training. The bottom line is the failure rate in this business is high enough already. If you want to all but guaranteed failure then don't train.

Starting to get into gear

I'm designing the next phase of this which is taking on some new agents. Can't very well start mass marketing without agents to handle leads, plus part of my new plan is to create an agency that takes on entry-level agents without screwing them. I don't see any places for newly licensed agent to start in health insurance field. Captive outfits like UGA or UA are horrible and going independent from the start is almost guaranteed failure. I want to hire new agents on W-2 status with a modest base pay and physical office - at bare minimum a draw against commish.

I telemarket my own leads and have learned how to qualify but today I designed a script so a new agent can survive cold-calling and generate enough interest so it doesn't "suck." My new script is simple:

"Hi, my name is John with the Health Solutions Agency. The reason I'm calling is there are new major medical health plans in Maryland and you can see now the rates and plan details right online. If you have individual or family coverage I'd like to send you an email with the site links so you can review everything when you have time."

After I get their email I tell them that I'll follow up with them later in the week to answer any questions they have.

This generates about 10 leads per hour which is a lot of action. Again, no qualification but that'll come with the follow up. But I'm a firm believer that new agents should hit the phones all day and not spend money while trying to get off the ground. I actually generated 10 leads just in my last 45 minutes of calls with that script.

I'll follow through with this for the rest of the week to see how the math works out.

Being home-based sucks

Today was just ok. My phone was out pretty much throughout the day. Every time I made a call I could hear the other person but after about two minutes they couldn't hear me. Didn't get fixed until around 4pm.

The problem is that completely distracted me and when I'm at home with my stay-at-home wife Lisa and son (Ryan) it's just too easy to say "Oh well, call it a wash today." It wasn't a total failure. I did get two confirmed appointments (phone appointments, not physical) set up to sign up two of the leads I generated from Tuesday.

But what today punctuates is not going into an actual office costs me money. There's just too many home distractions. I also thrive in a real work environment with other agents around. Part of my goal is a retail location with other agents. I'm competitive by nature and there's no one to compete with sitting like a turd in my home office. Quite boring actually. I really miss just the general camaraderie that comes with an office environment.