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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