Office or no office

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great demo today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Prospecting
• Contacting leads
• Presenting

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

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

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

ANY MARKETING ACTIVITY IS BETTER THAN NO MARKETING ACTIVITY!

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

I hear this all the time:

"But how many calls will I get?"

The reply?

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

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

Demo's on for today

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

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

Playing around with the script

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

Prospecting, the lost art and a CRM demo

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

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

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

The CRM Predictive Dialer Live Demo Webinar:

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting together for webinars!

If there's enough basic interest I'm thinking of getting agents together for webinars. It would be a time when a group of us can get together and basically shoot the shit about anything health insurance related; talk about marketing, selling and basically be able to talk to other agents about what's working or not working.

I'd be using Vyew and there's a number to dial in so everyone can chat and view marketing, sales, scripts and other cool stuff on the webinar.

I think they should be short - no longer than 30 minutes and maybe only once a week unless there's interest to have them more often.

These would only be for licensed agents since we'll be going over marketing, selling, closing, etc...we obviously don't want consumers prying in - sorry consumers.

Because of the right coast/left coast time differences, east cost mornings would be out so I'm thinking a great time would be around 1pm EST. The Californians are already up and about and the east-coasters still have time left in the day.

You can use these webinars as kinda of a "get off your ass" kick in the butt and we can all pick up valuable tips.

So let's set this up for Monday the 28th at 1PM EST.

If you want to participate you'll have to email me. Then I'll shoot you out the invite link to the webinar and the number to call in on. Again, you must be a licensed agent. Email me at info@marylandquotes.com

(If I smell that you're a consumer be prepared to prove you're an agent:-)

Webinar selling

Well let's get this out of the way; the best was to sign people up, especially if you're new, is to go see 'em. However, that's not always possible and not everyone's going to want to meet with you nor should you have to with everyone.

If you have a single prospect displaying very high interest and they qualify I really don't see the need to hop in your car.

I use Webinars for most of my online selling. There's a slew of companies offering webinar services but I use Vyew because it's free and has all the features I need. Most other services charge around $50 a month.

Why webinars?

• It has a "wow" or "cool" factor to it. Most people have never seen a webinar and they are indeed pretty cool - people will be impressed

• It's more engaging for people to look at something rather then just listen to some boring agent spout off about plans and rates

• You control the presentation - you know you're both looking at the same thing. This isn't the case when you take them to your quote page and you're talking about Copay Select while they're looking at Plan 100.
  

• Don't have to fumble with what to day. A lot of newer agents struggle with what they should be talking about. You need to talk about your services, the plan and the rate. With webinars all the info's right in front of you and all you have to do is highlight key points in the brochure

• The brochures are fantastic sales tools but without webinars they're difficult to go over. You might be on page 2 and you're client's probably looking at page 5. This allows you to go over the brochure and even highlight key benefits.
  

• Rates are last - and rates should be last. You cannot sell any plan without building value. Most presentations are backwards - agents show rates first and go over the plan benefits last. This leads to "selling by rate" instead of "selling by value." With my webinars I go over my services first, then the company, then the plan THEN then rates.
  

• You can click to share your desktop - basically it's like your client is standing behind you looking at your screen. You can pull up quoting software and they can watch as you do the online app.
  

Downsides

View uses Adobe Flash - which almost everyone has. But if you have a client running Windows on an old 386 it's gonna be a problem. If you're computer or internet connection is slow it'll be tedious to go from one page to the next and your client will get frustrated.

But again, Vyew is free - http://vyew.com - sign up and have at it.

An offer grom Gary - Marketing Campaign Solutions

A lot of emails from Gary's CRM, most them them asking me about pricing and basically how it works. I just talked to Gary and asked if he'd be willing to give any of my readers some type of break and he said yes.
So here's the offer from Gary:

$349 per month with no long-term commitment (normally $449) $149 set-up fee waived 1 week free trial
You must state that you read about this offer on my blog and it's only for a limited time. Gary didn't pin it down and say for exactly how long but that's up to him - not too long.

Call Gary at 912-944-2540 or email him at garyprado@gmail.com

I think that's an outstanding offer. It's everyone helping everyone - I get a discount and you get a discount and all is fair in the world. If I wasn't blown away with this I'd be talking about how much of a waste of time this is. In fact, I - like many others - hung back in the shadows after knowing about it and just recently decided to give it a try. The results are the results - it rocks.

I'm on day three using this and it has changed my entire marketing system. Results are indeed results and I'm two deals now submitted after 4 1/2 hours of calls. As you all know, most of us calls leads for 2 hours a day and don't put in 2 deals.

Ok - exactly how does this work and what are the features?

• You download the CRM - pictured - onto your computer. You can buy data from MCS or import you own data

• You go into "settings" and label your own buttons. This way you can keep track of leads, not interested, call backs, have group, etc....

• You set how many number you want it to dial at a time - 3, 2 or 1. I recommend 3 numbers at a time - it's actually very easy to manage and you get maximum results

• You pick up your office phone and call into the server. You do not call through your computer. This a dedicated line and the quality is crystal clear

• You enter in your password and click "Start Call Session" - then it starts dialing numbers until it someone picks up or it hits a machine. If it hits a machine you click AM-LM to leave a message you record. You simply record your own message when you call into the server. It will continue to dial the other two numbers while your message is being left.
  

• When someone answers, as you can see from the pic, it displays "answer." If you look at the pic you'll see this real example of Donna with "answer" next to it but if you look at the data the top you'll see all of Donna's info. This is instantaneous. Even before she says "hello" I see all her info. So after she says "hello" I'm already prepped to say "Is this Donna Smith?"
  

• While I'm on with Donna all other calling stops. After I'm done talking to her calling will resume after I click the appropriate button; lead, not interested, etc...

• On the top right you'll see "email." I can type in Donna's email and shoot her out an email I design right from the CRM.
  

• Lower right you'll see you can pause dialing or stop the calling session.
  

• In the middle right you'll see a "lead sheet" tab. You can type in all relevant lead info and save it.
  

• When you're done with your session you can run reports and export your leads.
  

If you're currently making calls it's not what this costs - it's what it costs not to have. I've done my own telemarketing and it's 40 dials per hour and I can tell you right now I've run the math and it's ugly for hand-dialing:

I have 2 deals closed for 4 1/2 hours. It's 3 to 1 - meaning this triples my results. So those same two deals would have taken 13+ hours to generate. Most of us can handle calling 2 hours a day - possible three so that's an entire week's worth of calls to put in 2 apps.

Here - it's 2 hours a day of calls to put in 5 apps. So you need to figure out what your commission is on an extra 3 apps per week and see if $349 a month is worth it. It's obvious.

From a personal note - I don't find myself having to get psyched to do this like when I hand-dialed. Each time you hand-dial you have to "psych" yourself to make the next call. I really like dialing one number, leaning back in my chair and simply being connected with people.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do besides this. If I can plug out a deal a day from a few hours of calls - heck, what else would I possible do?

A deal from yesterday and more calls

I'm officially addicted to this. It's been a long time since I've really enjoyed any marketing method but this is enjoyable. Whatever used to suck about making calls, this solves it.

Put in a deal from yesterday's calls. Healthy family paying $1,200 on Cobra and they simply didn't know any better. The wife wanted an infertility benefit and after grilling her it turns out she had an easy birth with her last child but simply wants the benefit. No problem - we wrote up Coventry.

$1,000 deductible for $680 a month for $8,160 in volume. I have two other people from yesterday's calls who are still highly interested so I'll see how that plays out. But one deal for 2 hours of calling is just fine by me.

More calls today:

149 minutes
459 dials 4 rock solid leads plus a call-back from a message = 5 DNC 184 is simply my way of marking anyone I don't want called back when I reset the data. That includes a lot of people who answered but they were larger businesses with group coverage.

I'm also only dealing with the owner. If the owner's not available I'm onto the next call. That's why I have such a high amount of dials today - I was 10 seconds with people who current have group and off the phone immediately unless it was a small business. I got a lot of doctor's offices, law firms and churches today and have to remember to scrub them out of my next set of data.

I only counted a "lead" today as someone I completely qualified head to toe; health, has a current plan, can and wants to save money.

Basically, if you paid for 40 leads these would be the 5 you're really impressed with. I'm just not gonna spend my days following up with people I can't help or people who really don't want to switch from what they have. Doesn't mean I'm gonna close all of 'em, but I'll take 1 out of 5 over 1 out of 20 any day.

So again, 2/12 hours of call today for 459 dials which would have taken me 11 1/2 hours to call manually dialing.

A few people have emailed me about my script. It's not much of a script:

"....new health plans are available from the top carriers like Blue Cross, United Healthcare and Aetna and I'm offering free quotes. If you have an individual plan you could save a significant amount of money. Do you current have a group or individual plan?"

If they say "group" I ask if they have employees on the plan. If yes it's over unless they continue the conversation.

If they say they have their own plan that's my potential lead. I say "then I'd really like to send you the new plans and rates - all I need is your home zip code and age."

Obviously we're dead if they say "just send me the info." I'll shoot 'em out info but won't count it as a lead. If they give me their zip and age I simply start a conversation about their current plan and what they'd like to change. If they say "well...I'm pretty happy with it but you can send me what you have" then we're done. Again - shoot 'em info, won't count it as a lead.

For the people who start to go on and on about their rate or plan THAT'S what I'm counting as a lead.

Gonna mess with my telemarketing system today

I've been used to hand dialing and gotten into a habit of getting the info I need and ended the call with "give me time to call you back tomorrow...." I had to get off the phone and back to dialing to generate more leads. You really can't afford to waste 20 minutes with someone who you "think" is highly interested, then that goes nowhere and your hour's shot.

Today, however, I'm gonna shoot the shit with interested people more and get more rapport going. I can pause the dialer and go off an a tangent with people which is what I really enjoy doing.

When you start looking at my lead results on seeing 2 to maybe 4 leads an hour you might think "this is no big deal - anyone can generate that many leads." But I'm guessing my closing ratio on these is gonna be around 1 out of 6 instead of the typical 1 out of 15 or even 1 out of 20 when you buy leads. When you're making calls yourself you're certainly not gonna fool yourself into thinking someone with low interest is actually a lead.

I'm pretty sure I have at least a deal out of yesterday with 113 minutes on the phone. I'd be impressed if that comes true. I was guessing more like 4 hrs a day would be one deal per day which is what I'm after.

My goal for this is $20,000 for the week and I'm interested to see how many hours on Gary's CRM it'll take for me to hit that number.

Wrapped up the calling

I wanted 3 hours today but got just under 2 in. My son had a half day - out at 1pm and my wife was working so I had to play Mr. Mom.

Here's the results:

113 minutes of calls
247 calls made
8 leads
55 messages left

3 additional leads from message call-backs. Those are strong as death. I'm very impressed with 3 call-backs out of 55 messages. The last on was a guy on Cobra for $1,200 a month, family plan and a few pre-ex conditions but nothing big, easy to underwrite.

I've never been able to leave messages before. You can do so manually dialing if you want but you'll have to put in more time calling to make up for it.

Back to what I'm calling a "lead." I'm taking advantage of the sheer number of people I'm talking to and only counting a "lead" as someone with high interest - not just someone who wants to review some plans and rates.

The bottom line again is 247 calls made in 113 minutes when manually dialing 40 an hour would have taken me 6 hours. I'm good for 2 hours of calls per day so I did 3 days of calling in 2 hours. Simply incredible.

Very nice!

Ok, 1st time I've ever made calls myself from the MCS (Marketing Campaign Solutions) CRM . It was pretty simple to configure - I labeled the buttons to match what I'm doing (I'm actually going to re-label some for the next round to simplify the results,) recorded my voice mail message and configured the email settings so I could shoot out emails from the CRM.

Very very cool - had it banging away at 3 dials at a time and it was very easy and almost fun to manage. You can see the stats above however again, I'll be simplifying the stats for the next round of calling:

Dials - 109
Lead - 4
Messages left - 20
Owner not in - 14 (phone was answered by gatekeeper)
DNC - 2 is not "do not call again" but simply wrong numbers
Not interested - 11 (see rest of post)
Got a call back from a message I left - lady has Mega and wants a quote

So a total of 5 leads.

So again, if you're manually dialing 40 numbers per hour this represents almost three hours of work which I did in 52 minutes.

I also had a different definition of a lead since I was on the phone with so many people. Normally when I telemarketed I was just out to sending owners info on the new plans. Then I'd follow up and ascertain interest - but mentally it had to be that way for me since "qualified" leads are few are far between when manually dialing and it's depressing.

Many of those 11 "not interested" leads would have been counted as leads. But after they said "sure, send the info" I got into some basic qualification. That's when I told most of them they're simply better off with what they have.

I found a huge psychological factor with the auto-dialer. When manually dialing you have to "psych" yourself before every single call. But when this I made one call then literally lean back in my chair (feet on the desk also:-) and just go through my pitch when people answer. Bottom line is it's simply easier to actually DO this.

I'll be making more calls today and give the update at the end of the day.

But the way I am not selling or offering this for the people who have emailed me. If you're interested in getting this call MCS at 800-660-6863

Wanted: guinea pigs

I'm looking for a few agents who are new to selling health - the newer the better. If you're a licensed agent and not selling health yet but considering it that's fine too.

I have a site I've been working on for a while and while it's not done yet I'd like a few people who aren't senior agents (since they already everything) to give me a review on what's I've done so far. There's a lot of info to review so I need some people with time to go through it.

Just shoot me an email if interested - info@marylandquotes.com

CRM installed!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrapping up the Week

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

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

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

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

Man do I love this job!

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

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

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

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

Got to work

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

And now my Golden Rule rant

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

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

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

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

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

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

What GR desperately needs is Asurant's software.

Well, here we go again

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

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

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

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

Wrapping it up today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nice way to start the day

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

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

Posting my daily results again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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