Activity to Produce 20 Homeowners Per Month

[oicu812nbama]

I want to set this goal for a producer. How many leads or what activity do you think it will take him to produce this? I'm using my money to market and want to be fair. Looking for opinions.

20 homeowners a month or 40,000 in commercial. One or the other.

 

[FL P&C Broker]

I would set a goal for him to do at least 10 quotes a day, 7 days a week. Internet leads, referrals and cold calls. Doesn't Activity produces results.

 

[Guest]

Why just HO, what about auto?

 

[djs]

In the best of times:
Each homeowners will take:
15 internet leads @ $10/lead = $150
150 cold call contacts, with persistence and followup
150 direct mail pieces @ $1.00 each = $150
4 hours of referral network work

Figure out some combination and go for it. 20 homeowners a month for a producer is pretty productive in todays market, at least where I am. If you have something to offer, its very doable, just will take 40 hours a week, hitting it every day.

And yes, these numbers will vary greatly, insert your own experience, don't nitpick mine. For instance, cold calling is the least consistent method I know of for regular production, but out of 150 people I talk to (not just dial), I can usually sell a policy. Home is a tough lead in product though for cold calling.

Dan

 

[Biggdogg]

The breakdown that's worked for me for years...15 new contacts, 10 quote households or businesses, 5 appointments. Do that everyday and he/she will be all set.

 

[oicu812nbama]

thanks guys. i wanted to hear from some pros.
rba, i wanted to keep the goal simple, reachable, but not easy. auto combos will come and he will get paid on them.

 

[Josh]

Re: Dan's point about cold calling being the least consistent way to generate new business, that's a very difficult statement to disagree with. That being said, if you want to set reasonable goals for a producer you may want to make it focused more around quality activity to get to the production vs specific production goals. For example, make 400 cold calls a day vs sell a homeowner policy a day. A middle ground may be to quote X number of policies a week (real quotes, not just picking folks at random) and go from there. Few things can cook a sales rep the same way trying to reach an arbitrary production goal will. You may go another route, but I'd consider those points if I were in your situation.

 

[oicu812nbama]

yeah, that's what i was trying to get at; the activity level. i've been on both sides of the coin and don't intend to hammer someone with a number. i personally like having a "success" number where i know that if i did nothing else that month, i'm still doin ok.
you guys think that 20 ho's is too large a number and would be frustrating?

 

[Josh]

There are so many variables it's tough to say.

Perhaps the practical thing to do would be to start off with the activity level, watch the results, and determine what you think is reasonable once you've seen some numbers.

Nearly every day someone asks me what type of a response rate they can expect from their cold calling or direct mail and I typically say between 0% and 3%, but both are about as likely.

You're in a bit of a pickle so to speak because you're numbers are going to be different than a new producer.

Just to use cold calling as an example, partially because it's so dang cheap, you may want to set goals of 200 calls a day which turns into 1,000 per week. After a week you'll have a pretty good idea how many quotes you're going to get out of it and then get an idea of how many of those turn into sales. Using benchmarks based on recent response rates in the same market for the same activity is the best way to get an idea of what to expect.

Just working numbers in reverse, if you want them to be cranking out 20 homeowners a month then you need let's say 100 quotes (don't know your close rate) which may mean you need to make 5,000 calls. That brings us to a little over 1,250 a week or 250 a day. As a new agent (or one new to this system) gets going they'll have a better idea of how realistic those numbers are. Maybe the close rate is 50% instead of 20% so they only need to get half the number of leads and/or maybe they're usually getting a house and two cars which is tripling the commission earned per client which means making the overall commission number be where you want it takes less work than was supposed.

One of the reasons why investors like to buy established businesses is because they have historical data to predict what will happen in the future; with what you're doing here you're flying blind. One way to change that is to start getting some action going and get an idea of what to expect then make those adjustments as you're moving.

 

[nyc2phi]

I think RBA has a point, I think 20 apps a month whether it is home or auto should suffice. You can have him target homes but I wouldn't be upset if he did 15 homes and 5 auto's in a month. For commercial I would have him pick a niche that you have companies for and have him start ex-dating like crazy during normal business hours, 40,000 in comm premium is attainable but could take a few months to get the ball rolling.