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I know a lot of us on this thread "cut our teeth" in this business by running Final Expense leads. Just the nature of this market leads to a lot of odd, funny, embarrassing situations. I am sure there are some great ones out there that we have not encountered, but here are some of our best "oldies but goodies", from a few years back.
The top 10 I can think of right now:
1. My son Tim, was training my son Jeff to sell Final Expense. Tim was about 24, that would have made Jeff 20. They had a lead on a 82 year old lady and try as they might, they could not get the lady to stay on the subject of Life Insurance. After a few futile attempts at getting the lady to talk to them, Tim finally suggested that he had another appointment soon and if she wanted to discuss this subject, maybe they out to try it now.
After maybe 2 minutes of Final Expense discussion, the lady wanted to talk about how much money she could save by using grocery coupons, and started laughing and jabbering about this subject. Jeff, being very impatient, had heard enough; so he tried to use his logic to get back to the subject. It lasted about 30 seconds, so back to another off the wall subject.
He finally asked if she really wanted to discuss what they were there for. She started laughing, and said "Son, don't pay any attention to an old lady like me, I've lost my dam'n mind".
Jeff replied, "Yes ma'am, I think maybe you have". Tim hauled Jeff back home and told me that maybe Jeff should find another niche.
2. I sold a 70 year old lady a $10,000 policy. Everything went well for 6 months until her son found the policy with my card. The son calls me and lets me know that Mama needs her $10,000 much more now than waiting until her demise. I originally thought he was kidding, but when he started threatening me with the Insurance Commission for selling fraudulent products, I detected he was serious. I told him that we had no control over the money coming out of the policies, that he needed to call the company. It don't take all kinds, but we got 'em.
3. A friend of mine in North Carolina was running Final Expense Leads late and had one straggler in a remote area that he thought he had about enough time before dark to catch. He was up in the North Carolina mountains (yes retread, I think this was a good snipe hunting place) and when he got there he found no one home, he took an alternate route back to his car. He fell in a cistern up to his shoulders Cistern - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He never figured out what the cistern was catching, but his wife said it did not smell like rainwater. He also pretty much ruined the interior of his car.
4. Tim & I were running leads in Knoxville, TN, knocked on a door and a very nice lady (65 or so) came to the door and said "let me have that card, I will be right back". We thought she had gone to get her husband, but thought something funny when she locked the door behind her. We waited about 10 minutes, knocked on her door again, she did not answer. We decided this was just her way of getting the card out of our hands, so we had no record of her. She not not put a telephone number on the card. We did not even remember her name.
5. Tim & I again. We had some leads in Johnson City, TN and I had talked to one of them, and scheduled an appointment for like 2 hours later at 1:00 in the afternoon. We arrived and knocked on the door. It was warm and the windows were open. We were not 20 feet from the dining table, and could see them sitting at the table eating lunch, ignoring us. We never got in this house to talk about what they had sent the lead card in about.
6. Tim & I again. Tim had talked to a man about 5 miles from our office, and asked if I would ride with him to talk to the man. Sure.
When we got there, the driveway led to the back door. We got out, knocked on the door with no answer. I walked out to the mailbox to see if we had the right address, yes we did.
I went back and knocked on the back door again and saw a fellow peeping at us from behind a petition at his house. About this time a car came flying in the driveway, blocking us in. The old fellow gets out of his car and asks, "Are you guys messing with him?". I explained what we were there for and the man in the house comes out and shows the neighbor that he had a pistol ready for us. The guy was 74 years old and had forgotten he had talked to Tim 15 minutes earlier. Now that he was reminded, he remembered and was ready to talk to us. We did not want to talk, we left.
7. Tim was training a bozo agent that had come from time-share sales. They knocked on a door at about 2:00 in the afternoon, a woman comes to the door with her hair flying, telling them she was interested, but had been asleep and was sick as a dog. Could they come back in a week or so?
Tim said sure. The new "expert in sales" agent started blaming Tim for not pushing his way into the home. His theory was that if the screen door was open, you put your leg in the door, so the client cannot close it. Then you are in. Tim came in complaining to me to never send him with this *** again. The new agent lasted about 2 weeks in the business. Tim has been in the business now over 20 years.
8. Another agent and I had made a telephone call and had an appointment with what we thought was a very nice lady. We pulled in the driveway which led (again) to the back of the house. Once we got stopped, here comes this guy with a cane screaming "get your damn ass out of here". I at first thought he was kidding, but when he ran down and slammed the car door in my face, I decided he was serious. The other agent starts telling me, "Get out of here, this damn guy has probably got a gun". There is nowhere to go but backwards, and the guy gets behind the car at first. I finally told him if he would move, I would gladly get the hell out of his place.
He finally moved, and followed us out, continually acting like he was going to smash our car in the front with his cane.
Once we got out of this mess and came to our senses, the other agent wanted to call them back. He told them they had broken our car window and we had called the sheriff's office to have the old man arrested. He may still be waiting and watching for the sheriff to show up.
9. We had an agent in West Tennessee that had moved back to West Tennessee from Atlanta. He called me and asked if I would supply him leads for Final Expense. I knew him, and was OK with the idea. This worked fine for about 3 months, we were buying the leads, he was running them, and we were both making money. Then we go through about a 3 week period of no business, so I call and get his wife. She explains "Jerry's in jail". I ask what for. "Child Support" from 5 years ago.
My next question was how long does he have to stay in jail.
She says, " Hell, I guess it's a life sentence, we don't have $31,000".
What had happened was that Jerry had made child support payments by money order for years, when they moved to West Tennessee, they threw the receipts away since they were all at least 5 years old. The ex-wife had taken a chance that that was what had happened, and filed non-paid child support charges against him.
Since he had no proof, she won, and had him put in jail. I gathered the leads and drove about 400 miles, stayed a week and sold about $4000 worth of final expense. I stopped by to see Jerry at his new home in jail, where he was a trustee; running errands for the sheriff, gardening around the courthouse, cutting grass, etc. He had the most beautiful pansies and petunias I have ever seen. He finally got out, and went on to be a Vice-President of an insurance company. I have not talked to Jerry in probably 8-10 years.
10. We had an in-house agent that would like to hang around the office drinking coffee until 11:00 or so, would drive about an hour to see his leads, then eat lunch. Then he would start calling on the leads from say 1:00-2:30. He would quit about 2:30 because he had to be back at a bar about 3:30, to meet his non-working buddies.
Constant complaints, he was not making any money. I tried to tell him to get his butt out of the office by 9:00, and be calling on clients around 10:00 at the latest. He found one still in bed at 10:00, so my idea was for the birds.
The last straw was when he came in and threw down about 40 leads on my desk, and said the damn leads were no good. I looked and he had called on only about 6 of them. Tim comes in and I show the leads to him. He took them and sold 9 policies from the "no good" leads.
These are just a few, I am sure I will think of more, and I am sure others will chime in on this thread. I have not seriously run leads in probably over 10 years, but still love to work in the field. You never know from day to day what is going to happen.
The top 10 I can think of right now:
1. My son Tim, was training my son Jeff to sell Final Expense. Tim was about 24, that would have made Jeff 20. They had a lead on a 82 year old lady and try as they might, they could not get the lady to stay on the subject of Life Insurance. After a few futile attempts at getting the lady to talk to them, Tim finally suggested that he had another appointment soon and if she wanted to discuss this subject, maybe they out to try it now.
After maybe 2 minutes of Final Expense discussion, the lady wanted to talk about how much money she could save by using grocery coupons, and started laughing and jabbering about this subject. Jeff, being very impatient, had heard enough; so he tried to use his logic to get back to the subject. It lasted about 30 seconds, so back to another off the wall subject.
He finally asked if she really wanted to discuss what they were there for. She started laughing, and said "Son, don't pay any attention to an old lady like me, I've lost my dam'n mind".
Jeff replied, "Yes ma'am, I think maybe you have". Tim hauled Jeff back home and told me that maybe Jeff should find another niche.
2. I sold a 70 year old lady a $10,000 policy. Everything went well for 6 months until her son found the policy with my card. The son calls me and lets me know that Mama needs her $10,000 much more now than waiting until her demise. I originally thought he was kidding, but when he started threatening me with the Insurance Commission for selling fraudulent products, I detected he was serious. I told him that we had no control over the money coming out of the policies, that he needed to call the company. It don't take all kinds, but we got 'em.
3. A friend of mine in North Carolina was running Final Expense Leads late and had one straggler in a remote area that he thought he had about enough time before dark to catch. He was up in the North Carolina mountains (yes retread, I think this was a good snipe hunting place) and when he got there he found no one home, he took an alternate route back to his car. He fell in a cistern up to his shoulders Cistern - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He never figured out what the cistern was catching, but his wife said it did not smell like rainwater. He also pretty much ruined the interior of his car.
4. Tim & I were running leads in Knoxville, TN, knocked on a door and a very nice lady (65 or so) came to the door and said "let me have that card, I will be right back". We thought she had gone to get her husband, but thought something funny when she locked the door behind her. We waited about 10 minutes, knocked on her door again, she did not answer. We decided this was just her way of getting the card out of our hands, so we had no record of her. She not not put a telephone number on the card. We did not even remember her name.
5. Tim & I again. We had some leads in Johnson City, TN and I had talked to one of them, and scheduled an appointment for like 2 hours later at 1:00 in the afternoon. We arrived and knocked on the door. It was warm and the windows were open. We were not 20 feet from the dining table, and could see them sitting at the table eating lunch, ignoring us. We never got in this house to talk about what they had sent the lead card in about.
6. Tim & I again. Tim had talked to a man about 5 miles from our office, and asked if I would ride with him to talk to the man. Sure.
When we got there, the driveway led to the back door. We got out, knocked on the door with no answer. I walked out to the mailbox to see if we had the right address, yes we did.
I went back and knocked on the back door again and saw a fellow peeping at us from behind a petition at his house. About this time a car came flying in the driveway, blocking us in. The old fellow gets out of his car and asks, "Are you guys messing with him?". I explained what we were there for and the man in the house comes out and shows the neighbor that he had a pistol ready for us. The guy was 74 years old and had forgotten he had talked to Tim 15 minutes earlier. Now that he was reminded, he remembered and was ready to talk to us. We did not want to talk, we left.
7. Tim was training a bozo agent that had come from time-share sales. They knocked on a door at about 2:00 in the afternoon, a woman comes to the door with her hair flying, telling them she was interested, but had been asleep and was sick as a dog. Could they come back in a week or so?
Tim said sure. The new "expert in sales" agent started blaming Tim for not pushing his way into the home. His theory was that if the screen door was open, you put your leg in the door, so the client cannot close it. Then you are in. Tim came in complaining to me to never send him with this *** again. The new agent lasted about 2 weeks in the business. Tim has been in the business now over 20 years.
8. Another agent and I had made a telephone call and had an appointment with what we thought was a very nice lady. We pulled in the driveway which led (again) to the back of the house. Once we got stopped, here comes this guy with a cane screaming "get your damn ass out of here". I at first thought he was kidding, but when he ran down and slammed the car door in my face, I decided he was serious. The other agent starts telling me, "Get out of here, this damn guy has probably got a gun". There is nowhere to go but backwards, and the guy gets behind the car at first. I finally told him if he would move, I would gladly get the hell out of his place.
He finally moved, and followed us out, continually acting like he was going to smash our car in the front with his cane.
Once we got out of this mess and came to our senses, the other agent wanted to call them back. He told them they had broken our car window and we had called the sheriff's office to have the old man arrested. He may still be waiting and watching for the sheriff to show up.
9. We had an agent in West Tennessee that had moved back to West Tennessee from Atlanta. He called me and asked if I would supply him leads for Final Expense. I knew him, and was OK with the idea. This worked fine for about 3 months, we were buying the leads, he was running them, and we were both making money. Then we go through about a 3 week period of no business, so I call and get his wife. She explains "Jerry's in jail". I ask what for. "Child Support" from 5 years ago.
My next question was how long does he have to stay in jail.
She says, " Hell, I guess it's a life sentence, we don't have $31,000".
What had happened was that Jerry had made child support payments by money order for years, when they moved to West Tennessee, they threw the receipts away since they were all at least 5 years old. The ex-wife had taken a chance that that was what had happened, and filed non-paid child support charges against him.
Since he had no proof, she won, and had him put in jail. I gathered the leads and drove about 400 miles, stayed a week and sold about $4000 worth of final expense. I stopped by to see Jerry at his new home in jail, where he was a trustee; running errands for the sheriff, gardening around the courthouse, cutting grass, etc. He had the most beautiful pansies and petunias I have ever seen. He finally got out, and went on to be a Vice-President of an insurance company. I have not talked to Jerry in probably 8-10 years.
10. We had an in-house agent that would like to hang around the office drinking coffee until 11:00 or so, would drive about an hour to see his leads, then eat lunch. Then he would start calling on the leads from say 1:00-2:30. He would quit about 2:30 because he had to be back at a bar about 3:30, to meet his non-working buddies.
Constant complaints, he was not making any money. I tried to tell him to get his butt out of the office by 9:00, and be calling on clients around 10:00 at the latest. He found one still in bed at 10:00, so my idea was for the birds.
The last straw was when he came in and threw down about 40 leads on my desk, and said the damn leads were no good. I looked and he had called on only about 6 of them. Tim comes in and I show the leads to him. He took them and sold 9 policies from the "no good" leads.
These are just a few, I am sure I will think of more, and I am sure others will chime in on this thread. I have not seriously run leads in probably over 10 years, but still love to work in the field. You never know from day to day what is going to happen.
