Door knocking Face to Face in 2024

[Txmade99]

Why you ask so many hard questions. This is going to be fun watching the deflection
Have you ever worked the FE market? You should be more concerned about going into their home vs them of you

No, I haven't. Just whole life and term life for a captive company as a telemarketer. I do enjoy helping people. I'm just trying to see what I would enjoy and where I can most likely succeed. But most of all, I want to work smarter, not harder. I thought going independent telesales would be the move but something is telling me no. I guess all I can do is try.

 

[jdeasy]

No, I haven't. Just whole life and term life for a captive company as a telemarketer. I do enjoy helping people. I'm just trying to see what I would enjoy and where I can most likely succeed. But most of all, I want to work smarter, not harder. I thought going independent telesales would be the move but something is telling me no. I guess all I can do is try.

You make a good point about being tied to a desk. Even if FE telesales were viable there's no way I'm sitting in an office 8 hours a day. Many say they are at the desk even hours than that. Some don't even mind that. Those are the ones that should be doing it. I'm in the field usually 2 days a week. Occasionally 2 and a half days.

I might spend 2 hours a week on the phone sitting appointments when I'm strictly running appointments. Even less when mostly DK'ing. Today was just DK'ing. I didn't get away from home until 10:30 because we are closing on a new home tomorrow and I was doing set up phone calls for that.

I got back to town about 4:00 pm. I wrote 4 applications for a little over $3K. Went by another client's home and explained what an APS is. Drove 148 miles. Would have been in sooner but the damn SBLI eApp kept hanging up.

But since I did all eApps I'm all done except for sending Thank You cards. Which I'm doing right now.

 

[hockeyday]

You make a good point about being tied to a desk. Even if FE telesales were viable there's no way I'm sitting in an office 8 hours a day. Many say they are at the desk even hours than that. Some don't even mind that. Those are the ones that should be doing it. I'm in the field usually 2 days a week. Occasionally 2 and a half days.

I might spend 2 hours a week on the phone sitting appointments when I'm strictly running appointments. Even less when mostly DK'ing. Today was just DK'ing. I didn't get away from home until 10:30 because we are closing on a new home tomorrow and I was doing set up phone calls for that.

I got back to town about 4:00 pm. I wrote 4 applications for a little over $3K. Went by another client's home and explained what an APS is. Drove 148 miles. Would have been in sooner but the damn SBLI eApp kept hanging up.

But since I did all eApps I'm all done except for sending Thank You cards. Which I'm doing right now.

You still running the rgi pay per Lead, leads,

 

[Rearden]

This is the whole reason why more people should be doing face to face. You are creating an unfair advantage for yourself as people largely prefer to not be sold over the phone. But most agent don't want to leave their couch.

People say one thing but in action do things differently.

With that said, I'm still in favor of agents doing face-to-face sales if they really wanted to. It's probably better than ever considering the seismic shift to telesales that has happened and continues to happen.

Alas, the trend is not in favor of the traditional way.

 

[Rearden]

But isn't their an increase of people that don't want strangers in their home as well?

Nah.

Most people are plenty welcoming.

Complainers, while you hear from them the most frequently, are always in the minority.

I bet JD, Joey, and plenty others on the forum have leads that let them right in without much of a fuss.

 

[jdeasy]

You still running the rgi pay per Lead, leads,

No. I do a 1000 piece mailer. 1 time a month.

 

[jdeasy]

People say one thing but in action do things differently.

With that said, I'm still in favor of agents doing face-to-face sales if they really wanted to. It's probably better than ever considering the seismic shift to telesales that has happened and continues to happen.

Alas, the trend is not in favor of the traditional way.

No one wants to do either.

People get into this to make money.

Agents think they want to do telesales because they are fed a line of bullshit about it.

If you want to be an upline, get into telesales. You want to make money for your upline, be telesales agent.

You want to make money from your own work and keep it? Be traditional.

It's traditional for a reason.

 

[theinsuranceman]

When you say 8 hours at the desk, that's an understatement. Those guys are going into 11:00 p.m. grinding on the outbound calls, unless you have cash for the $80 dollar inbound leads but even then you have to sit and wait for the call. I salute them but that's when I thought, I'm not sure if that's something I want to do. It feels too much like a job. And it didn't help I checked in with a team members already complaining about the client canceling after one day. Trying to see if I should just stick it out even though they said I can do face to face and they said if I need any questions or help I can always call. But, I did want an fmo that could provide more in depth support and or training.

Lots of ways to do FE telesales. In my opinon taking live TV transfers is the way to go. Yes they're $55 each but this is a lead just 45 sec old, with a super high intent. And you don't waste any of your precious time dialing and dialing and dialing just to hear, when you finally do make contact, "we already took ar of that". That's demoralizing.

The agent would also want to be in a minimum of 10 states to receive 4-7 TV transfers per 8 hours. If in 35 states you can work a lot more transfers. This opinion is from someone who has been doing FE telesales since 2004. We were the first group in the nation to start FE telesales, over a decade before covid forced others to jump into telesales.

With all of this being said, I still prefer the face to face platform, it's just more fun for me.

 

[shonceman]

What is a home service debit agent or what all do you sell? And yeah I was told I would more than likely need to work somewhere in Sherman Texas and Tarrant county, but that traffic is brutal going into Ft. Worth everyday. I don't mind sometimes, but coming back and forth everyday is alot. Now you said you come from McKinney to Oak Cliff. I actually don't think that's bad. At least you can take back roads if you need to if the highway is jammed pack.

You're right. My commute isn't usually too bad. I agree with you about driving over to the west side of the Metroplex. For some reason, as congested as the Dallas side seems. Tarrant seems far worse!

Home Service is the original method of selling FE. But rather than placing on bank draft, the agent collects the premium directly from the insured each month. This gives the agent opportunities for add on sales, cross selling, and referrals. It's really a system of relationship marketing. Most agents refer to us as debit agents, which is old terminology that came from the way we handled agency accounting back in the day.

I did an interview on the topic a couple years ago for a podcast. One of the hosts is a forum member (@NAF1138). He actually posted earlier in this thread. FWIW, here's the video:

 

[LostDollar]

Most people are plenty welcoming.

Caveat, not an agent.

I don't know what it is like now, but 50 years ago in the south, in VA and TN that was the case for the most part.

I about got shot twice and met some vicious dogs, but overall there were a lot of very nice people.