Anyone Working for State Farm, I Need Advice

[Amy Huddleston]

Hello Everyone-

Has anyone here worked as a producer under an agent for State Farm? I am currently working for a young agent who just took over a book of business in my area after living in another state. He believes solely on internet leads for selling, and me and the one other producer are starving, literally. We find it near impossible to sell these leads anything.

Any words of advice?

Thank you-
Amy

 

[Markthebroker]

Run.

 

[Amy Huddleston]

As I thought, thanks for the response.

Amy

 

[Chazm]

My friend runs a SF office and is only 2 years in. He does tons of internet leads and calling on current clients. He’s a hustler and works non stop. Shockingly he’s a top 10 east coast new agent and his producers have no problems. I would never do what he does but he kicks ass.

Find a new SF agent if you are good at what you do

 

[VolAgent]

If you aren't making money with internet leads you need to evaluate a few things.

1. Are you getting leads that match your carrier's appetite? If no, then get leads that are a better match. No vendor will be perfect, but should be able to get close enough.
2. What are your processes like? How long do leads sit, what is the follow up like, do you have experience working and selling off leads?
3. Are you flexible as to how you communicate? Text is king in personal lines. Are you getting permission to text? Are you texting?

 

[Amy Huddleston]

If you aren't making money with internet leads you need to evaluate a few things.

1. Are you getting leads that match your carrier's appetite? If no, then get leads that are a better match. No vendor will be perfect, but should be able to get close enough.
2. What are your processes like? How long do leads sit, what is the follow up like, do you have experience working and selling off leads?
3. Are you flexible as to how you communicate? Text is king in personal lines. Are you getting permission to text? Are you texting?

 

[Amy Huddleston]

We try to call leads as soon as they pop in the system, sometimes working a few simultaneously. By the time we call, I have noticed either no answer usually, or they are irritated and say they have been called 100 times by different companies, and do not want to talk. We use EverQuote and Hometown quotes the most, and call 10 days straight before pinning out for renewal contacts. And no, unfortunately most of our target audience has been way off the mark lately unfortunately.

 

[VolAgent]

We try to call leads as soon as they pop in the system, sometimes working a few simultaneously. By the time we call, I have noticed either no answer usually, or they are irritated and say they have been called 100 times by different companies, and do not want to talk. We use EverQuote and Hometown quotes the most, and call 10 days straight before pinning out for renewal contacts. And no, unfortunately most of our target audience has been way off the mark lately unfortunately.

Might want to try something different then. I generate Facebook leads for agents, which avoids a lot of the problem with internet leads. Namely, multiple agents aren't calling. Now there is no guarantee they aren't looking elsewhere, in fact a decent chance they are, but we don't sell the same lead to multiple agents.

@Bob Klee, the founder of Hometown Quotes is on the forum. Good guy, but I personally believe that affiliate fraud is rampant in the internet quote arena and that many vendors are willing victims to it. There is another agent on here who has bought life leads from HTQ and I have bought home leads from them. Not once did HTQ or any other vendor ever go, "Hey, we found out Lead #XXXX is bogus. We're going to credit you for that." Bob says that most leads don't get resold that much, but plenty are. Statistics say that eventually it would happen that another agent returns a lead you both bought as bogus. The right thing to do would be to then refund everyone who bought that lead. I've yet to hear of this happening.

All that said, Bob is also the guy who turned me on to texting, although it took me a while to come around. He has said in the past all his leads include permission to text. So you should definitely start texting those leads at least. I'm unsure of what EverQuote does as far as texting.

 

[Amy Huddleston]

Might want to try something different then. I generate Facebook leads for agents, which avoids a lot of the problem with internet leads. Namely, multiple agents aren't calling. Now there is no guarantee they aren't looking elsewhere, in fact a decent chance they are, but we don't sell the same lead to multiple agents.

@Bob Klee, the founder of Hometown Quotes is on the forum. Good guy, but I personally believe that affiliate fraud is rampant in the internet quote arena and that many vendors are willing victims to it. There is another agent on here who has bought life leads from HTQ and I have bought home leads from them. Not once did HTQ or any other vendor ever go, "Hey, we found out Lead #XXXX is bogus. We're going to credit you for that." Bob says that most leads don't get resold that much, but plenty are. Statistics say that eventually it would happen that another agent returns a lead you both bought as bogus. The right thing to do would be to then refund everyone who bought that lead. I've yet to hear of this happening.

All that said, Bob is also the guy who turned me on to texting, although it took me a while to come around. He has said in the past all his leads include permission to text. So you should definitely start texting those leads at least. I'm unsure of what EverQuote does as far as texting.

 

[Amy Huddleston]

Thank you for the responses, I really appreciate the insights.