2008 Lead Company Update

[Lancealot]

By the way...forgot to mention this about "Hometown Quotes."

A mock health lead was submitted to them within the last 10 days. Hometown sent a confirmation email within a few moments indicating the names of the agents that would be calling (along with an EHEALTH Instant quote offer). WITHIN 5 MINUTES...An email was sent from BOTH Netquote and Insureme listing their agents that would be calling. Clearly, Hometown wasted no time in selling that lead.

Gee thanks. I love agents like you that fill out "mock" (read: bogus, BS, crap, etc.) leads. Sounds like you have too much spare time.

I buy leads from both InsureMe and Hometownquotes (along with Netquote and one other who shall remain nameless because I can say nothing nice about them yet) and two things are faulty about the above though. I buy in excess of 1500 leads per week total.

1. Hometownquotes does not sell health leads to InsureMe.
2. Their confirmation emails do not contain the information you indicate.

If you think that lead companies are not trying to stay competitive in the market you are mistaken. If you think that the average consumer is not pissed off when they only get two measly quotes, you are mistaken. If you think that somehow you can drive leads better yourself with your paltry budget, you are mistaken. We have tried and failed more times than I can count and we have plenty of money to try.

I also don't understand your obsession and concern with eHealth, but I will leave that alone because quite frankly it is both amusing and comforting to know where your energies are going. It makes my job that much safer and the jobs of my sales floor that much easier.

Lastly I will say about all three companies mentioned....they are great companies with fine gentlemen and women representing them. Perfect? Not at all. Honest and Sincere? you bet your sweet ass.

 

[somarco]

Is Net Quote still a reseller only or do they also have an in house call center?

I ran into this a year or so back. Can't recall who the vendor was, but their call center got the lead a few minutes before agents did. I discovered this when I was playing the "first one in" game only to discover they just got off the phone with someone in CA and had already bought.

The vendor blamed the delay on my email service saying it probably took a few minutes to get to me.

Maybe, but 20 - 30 minutes?

I don't think so.

Lead vendors invest a lot of money to generate leads and not everyone are sold. Since places like NQ & Health Benefits Direct are willing to take almost anything (and rarely ask for credits except in the most extreme situations) they are a good market. They buy in volume but pay a low price per lead to offset the leads that could be credited but are never submitted.

And many of the lead vendors use a Norvax quote engine (with or without the ability to generate an app) as a way of providing instant information to their leads.

So how much revenue is generated off sold business from an eHealth link?

Not that much.

Everyone approaches our business differently. Admittedly the overall quality of leads has diminished over the last 3 years but that is a function of the instant information age and a buying public that has become accustomed to thinking everything on the internet is either free or seriously discounted vs. a brick & mortar operation.

As long as you understand the dynamics of this business, you can deal with it and prosper.

While internet leads are not a panacea, there are quite a few agents I know who do very well working almost exclusively with internet leads.

Either this is part of your business plan or it isn't.

If it isn't working for you then move on.

I have worked with agents and earned overrides off their production for over 25, only moving to personal production about 3 years ago after a sabbatical. I can tell you that agents always bitching about something.

Hey, if this business were easy everyone would want to do it.

So here is a question for you. If you had access to primo leads, with full filters, no reselling to NQ and other lead vendors, and no link to eHealth, how much would you be willing to pay?

What is your price point? $10? $15? $25?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

When I moved off shared leads I started to smell a rat regarding priority. I really don't mind when things are fair and fair is obviously when each agent receives the lead at the same time.

It was my goal to be the first to call and noticed that with certain lead companies, all of a sudden, I would call literally seconds after receiving the lead only to hear that they just got off the phone with someone.

As you stated, the lead companies blamed this on my email delay. Bullshit. I have my settings so I get emails instantly (by the way, check your settings, you may have Outlook set up to only search for new messages every 10, 15, or 30 minutes.)

But like you I started asking questing and come to find some of these prospects had been called 5 or 10 minutes before I received the lead.

Now, far be it for me to don the tin foil hat and rattle off conspiracy theories but could it possibly be that call centers with deep pockets make back door arrangements to receive the lead first? Oh - that would never happen. And if it does happen no one would ever be able to prove it anyway.

I'm off shared leads not because they don't work. They do. I'd probably be closing 1 out of 15. I'm out of the game because I refuse to be lied to and abused constantly.

"Oh, we had no idea our affiliate was doing that be we're right on it."
"What? Leads are getting calls from 8 agents? We'll look into that."
"Redirecting to Ehealth doesn't hurt you - go mind you own business"
"Clients say call centers are beating you by 5 or 10 minutes? Must be your email."

When it becomes fair I'll be back in. I'll compete with three agents with no redirect to Ehealth and everyone gets the lead at the same time and no affiliates.

Unless someone can show me a company that meets that criteria I'm out.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

I buy in excess of 1500 leads per week total.

1. Hometownquotes does not sell health leads to InsureMe.
2. Their confirmation emails do not contain the information you indicate.


I also don't understand your obsession and concern with eHealth,
Lastly I will say about all three companies mentioned....they are great companies with fine gentlemen and women representing them. Perfect? Not at all. Honest and Sincere? you bet your sweet ass.

You are dead wrong about Hometown. Not 50% wrong. 100% wrong. I saw it with my own eyes. And it happened three times over the last 90 days (not mock quotes). It seems as if you, with just your second post, are the obsessed one. Perhaps a Hometown employee???

Re EHEALTH...Given the choice, all brokers would prefer that they not appear in emails sent to prospects. That's a fact. Unless of course...you work for a lead company.

Finally...More than 1500 leads weekly...What is your website and what's the name of the agency?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

No one should be supporting any lead company that provides a link to Ehealth. It is simply unfair since the theory of shared leads is everyone gets an equal shot. It's obviously not an equal shot when one company is being heavily promoted over another.

To make it fair, an email would need to be shot out to the prospect showing the links to all agent's websites. After all, a lot of agents have Norvax or Quotit.

But as long as agents are willing to support companies using the Ehealth link nothing will ever change. And it doesn't matter if Ehealth is paying more for the link - that also means agents should be charged less since their opportunity to land the sale greatly diminishes.

So basically before Ehealth you were charged $8 and after Ehealth you're charged $8 except that you have far less chance of getting the deal. Great for the lead company. Horrible for the agents.

I wonder how much these lead companies would have to charge Ehealth if their agents grew a pair and either demanded the removal of the Ehealth link or they yanked their business.

 

[Sam]

I have been approached by 6 different lead companies over the last two years, who all wanted to sponsor the forum. One even offered $2,500 a month for 6 months. Of course, if you understand their business model, they would have gotten the better end of the deal, especially since most of our visitors are not members and would not read the negative threads that would doubtlessly ensue. I turned them all down for precisely this reason. No matter the company, experience always varies and there are always a few people who will hate them, usually with good reason. It is simply not a business model that can keep all customers happy at all times. I don't need the members all fighting me because some lead company that I endorse ends up screwing them up.

I think that these threads will continue forever with new companies popping up, and new tactics... companies will rise and fall and rise again and they will always have some pissed off clients.

The fact is, there is a limited number of qualified prospects that are actively seeking our products, and you need to sell the wheat with the chaff to make a buck in the lead generation business.

I even built a separate website, Insurance Leads thinking of doing a lead company comparison site, but there is just too much crap and so I never got past the building stage.

 

[Expat]

Gee thanks. I love agents like you that fill out "mock" (read: bogus, BS, crap, etc.) leads. Sounds like you have too much spare time.

I buy leads from both InsureMe and Hometownquotes (along with Netquote and one other who shall remain nameless because I can say nothing nice about them yet) and two things are faulty about the above though. I buy in excess of 1500 leads per week total.

1. Hometownquotes does not sell health leads to InsureMe.
2. Their confirmation emails do not contain the information you indicate.

If you think that lead companies are not trying to stay competitive in the market you are mistaken. If you think that the average consumer is not pissed off when they only get two measly quotes, you are mistaken. If you think that somehow you can drive leads better yourself with your paltry budget, you are mistaken. We have tried and failed more times than I can count and we have plenty of money to try.

I also don't understand your obsession and concern with eHealth, but I will leave that alone because quite frankly it is both amusing and comforting to know where your energies are going. It makes my job that much safer and the jobs of my sales floor that much easier.

Lastly I will say about all three companies mentioned....they are great companies with fine gentlemen and women representing them. Perfect? Not at all. Honest and Sincere? you bet your sweet ass.

WHAT A CROCK.

I am sure that if you were to add the amount of leads purchased, by all of the agents in this forum who have complained, they would exceed 1,500. Since most of the complaints are about the same practices of lead companies one would have to believe that the complaints are legitimate.
I am also sure that if you were to count the sales from these leads, they would greatly exceed those from any boiler room.
If you had taken time to research the forum, you would have seen a few samples of the emails that are sent to the people who submitted the lead.
If you don’t submit a dummy lead, how in the hell are you going to find out how many agents the lead is being sold to. Maybe we should just believe the information handed out by the lead company rep. Also it is nice to know who your competition is.
Anyone with an IQ exceeding that of a ping pong ball knows that a prominent link to E-Health greatly diminishes the chances of getting the lead to answer the telephone. This is another reason to send in a dummy lead, and why I will not buy from any company that has this link.
Also any company that has an in-house sales department, can anyone seriously doubt that they will call the lead before releasing the emails to other agents.
Hometown does sell to InsureMe. Period.
You will see a lot of bullshit on this forum, but I do not believe that you will see any outright lies.

 

[insuremojo]

My experience with Hometown quotes is pretty similar to everybody else's, and in fact I was about to recently cancel my subscription from them. I only get about 2-5 leads per month on average for health from them and use them to supplement my BtoB and COI leads I'm constantly working on.

Anyways, it had been about 2 months since I've written a deal with them and was getting "crappy" leads, uninsurables, people NEVER answering emails or phone calls. Basically in the last 3 months I was batting 1 for 20 and was getting pretty fed up with their strict credit policy.

Ok, to make a long story short after getting the run around for 2 months and not getting a single deal I did get someone to come into my office for an appointment. Got creative for their particular situation and ended up writing 2 apps from this one lead. 2 days later this client referred 2 other people to my office (just walked in..don't you love those?) and wrote another 2 deals. Now, I'm working on 2 more referrals that will probably close in a few days and I was just wondering to myself..wow, glad I didn't get rid of them! Anyways, just thought I'd share that little story with you guys, because internet leads in my opinion are like prospecting for gold, you have to go through a lot of dirt to find that one little nugget of gold.

Now my roi is through the roof because I held off canceling those suckers, go figure.

 

[Expat]

My experience with Hometown quotes is pretty similar to everybody else's, and in fact I was about to recently cancel my subscription from them. I only get about 2-5 leads per month on average for health from them and use them to supplement my BtoB and COI leads I'm constantly working on.

Anyways, it had been about 2 months since I've written a deal with them and was getting "crappy" leads, uninsurables, people NEVER answering emails or phone calls. Basically in the last 3 months I was batting 1 for 20 and was getting pretty fed up with their strict credit policy.

Ok, to make a long story short after getting the run around for 2 months and not getting a single deal I did get someone to come into my office for an appointment. Got creative for their particular situation and ended up writing 2 apps from this one lead. 2 days later this client referred 2 other people to my office (just walked in..don't you love those?) and wrote another 2 deals. Now, I'm working on 2 more referrals that will probably close in a few days and I was just wondering to myself..wow, glad I didn't get rid of them! Anyways, just thought I'd share that little story with you guys, because internet leads in my opinion are like prospecting for gold, you have to go through a lot of dirt to find that one little nugget of gold.

Now my roi is through the roof because I held off canceling those suckers, go figure.

MURPHY'S LAW.

 

[Expat]

I wonder how much these lead companies would have to charge Ehealth if their agents grew a pair and either demanded the removal of the Ehealth link or they yanked their business.

Grow a brain, You cannot cure stupidity.