Final Expense Newbie

[theinsuranceman]

I agree, Jody! I have seen our own production reports for agents under us who tried to sell FE over the phone. I know that I've said this many times, but bottom line is that the persistency selling FE over the phone is no where near that of an agent selling belly to belly.

Of the dozens of agents I have talked to who have tried to sell FE over the phone, all of them lost their tails spending thousands on leads and lasted less than 90 days. These same guys are now or have been selling successfully, so its not a matter of sales skills or lack thereof.

mcoll - I agree 100% with VaDwayne above....he is dead on regarding the way SUCCESSFUL and PROFITABLE Agents are selling FE.

Feel free to message or email me if I can assist you in any way, Michelle.

What kind of training were the agents provided to learn how to PROPERLY sell FE on the phone? And.....have you ever been trained or tried it yourself ? No training and no leads = FAILURE both in the field and on the phone. There are techniques used both in the field and on the phone to keep persistency up.

Just as some agents FAIL and COMPLAIN in the field, some agents will FAIL and COMPLAIN about selling on the phone. You know..if you've not spent a considerable amount of time doing both methods (assuming proper training and plenty of leads) how can you be QUALIFIED in REALLY KNOWING both methods THOROUGHLY?

(On 2nd thought..yea you are correct... selling FE on the phone won't work. Spread that around for us. We don't really want any other competition).

 

[IndyAgentIDTMY]

What kind of training were the agents provided to learn how to PROPERLY sell FE on the phone? And.....have you ever been trained or tried it yourself ? No training and no leads = FAILURE both in the field and on the phone. There are techniques used both in the field and on the phone to keep persistency up.

Just as some agents FAIL and COMPLAIN in the field, some agents will FAIL and COMPLAIN about selling on the phone. You know..if you've not spent a considerable amount of time doing both methods (assuming proper training and plenty of leads) how can you be QUALIFIED in REALLY KNOWING both methods THOROUGHLY?

(On 2nd thought..yea you are correct... selling FE on the phone won't work. Spread that around for us. We don't really want any other competition).

Of course training on how to properly sell FE is needed, whether on the phone or in person....no one is disputing that point. I also doubt that anyone here would dispute that an Agent must have leads. Both of these things are offered by dozens of MGA's and IMO's in some way, shape or form.

I have sold, been trained on and trained others to sell FE both in person and on the phone. I have also run a call center and looked at many different programs for phone and in-person sales of FE. Also, we have an associate in our downline who runs a large call center and did have some success for some time selling FE on the phone.

The problem was that after several months, we both found that FE business sold over the phone simply does not stay on the books. I have found the same to be true of selling most products over the phone versus in-person. Rather than attempt to continue doing the same things over and over again and expect a different result, we got out of the business of selling FE over the phone.

These are simply our experiences and in no way bashing anyone else doing FE over the phone. A poster asked for advice from people involved in FE, so I gave it. Perhaps others have had success where we have not, and I can accept that. Regardless, based upon my experiences, I cannot endorse selling FE over the phone as a good business model.

For now, I'll stick with what works for me, which is offering good compensation, marketing and underwriting support to my Agents.

 

[VaDwayne]

Michelle,

If an agent is closing 25% of the leads that he/she has paid $20-25 for, then a person who works 25 leads a week will pay the company at least $500.00 a week just for leads. $ 500.00 X52 weeks = $26000 a year.

If that agency has 100 agents working for them and using this method, they are pocketing $2.6 million dollars just on leads.

Do you think they care if you sell anything? Do it on your own, make 115% commission, at put the money back into your pocket.

After spending time on this forum this past year, just about every agent is looking for the easy way to sell insurance(THERE ISN'T ONE), and they end up broke and in debt up to their eyeballs, only to quite 3-6 months into their career to go deliver pizza to repay their debt.

If you are going to buy leads, do it after you have income coming in, don't pay for them with a credit card, and use your commission to build your business. Doing it with a credit card is a recipe for disaster!! Do you think the lead companies care if you go broke? NO, because you have purchased leads for 3-6 months, and put 1000's of dollars in their pocket, and they simply recruit new agents to take your place.

REMEMBER THIS RULE OF THUMB: WHATEVER INCOME FIGURES ARE QUOTED BY AN AGENT ON THIS FORUM, DIVIDE THEM BY 50%, AND YOU WILL HAVE ACCURATE INFORMATION.

 

[theinsuranceman]

DaWayne....for the UNinformed....if you generate leads for FE yourself...you will find that it easily will cost you $25-$35 per lead generated. For ex.: $400 to print and mail 1000 pieces with a GENEROUS 1.5 % return means you spent $400 for 15 leads. What does $400 divided by 15 =? (The answer is $26.66 per lead). If you get a 1% response your lead cost is $40 per lead! Of course you could cold call, but then you spend a lot of wasted time PROSPECTING. By far the most successful agents work leads, not cold calling. Although some (very rare) will succeed cold calling only. When it gets dark at 5:30 pm you can still sell for another 3 hours using the phone. All I know is this works very well for me.

 

[SecureHealth1]

insuranceman,

I noticed you said your company is a "captive deal", we currently do very well in the health insurance market, how could we ad FE to what we do if you must be captive? Could that work? also we generate alot of our own leads online, what if we did the same for FE and do not use your leads? We are licensed in 15 states already for life.

 

[Frank Stastny]

Thanks, both of you, for the advice so far. So a couple more questions:

-Are there any other companies besides the 2 mentioned above that are big players in that arena? Do we call them "captive" situations, although the agents sell for multiple carriers (in P&C I was exclusive- and that was just 1 company)?
-The other main questions I have are: finalexpensetelesales .com requires you to purchase a certain amount of leads per month, which I'm not particularly excited about, but on the other hand they give you access to all their "B" leads, which are older leads. I found in the P&C world it seemed there were many "b" leads I was successful with because other agents didn't work them as well (being willing to call often, late, saturdays, etc).
-Does Equita, or any other captive situation, offer "free" access to such a database?

Thanks!

I have sold a "ton" of FE in the last sixteen years without prospecting for it or buying leads. Med Supps are infinitely easier to prospect for, set appointments for and sell than any other kind of insurance I have sold. (I don't buy leads for Med Supps either.)

When you save money for a new client on their Med Supp it is real easy to suggest to them that they may want to consider re-investing a portion of that savings in a FE plan. What makes it so easy is that you aren't using any "new money". You are using money that they already had budgeted and were already spending.

Cross selling FE will usually double, if not more, the commission you made on the Med Supp policy.

If you would like more information please give me a call. My number is below.

 

[VaDwayne]

DaWayne....for the UNinformed....if you generate leads for FE yourself...you will find that it easily will cost you $25-$35 per lead generated. For ex.: $400 to print and mail 1000 pieces with a GENEROUS 1.5 % return means you spent $400 for 15 leads. What does $400 divided by 15 =? (The answer is $26.66 per lead). If you get a 1% response your lead cost is $40 per lead! Of course you could cold call, but then you spend a lot of wasted time PROSPECTING. By far the most successful agents work leads, not cold calling. Although some (very rare) will succeed cold calling only. When it gets dark at 5:30 pm you can still sell for another 3 hours using the phone. All I know is this works very well for me.

FI know from talking to you that are successful at it, there are very few on this forum that are, but there are tons of broke agents who've tried it. Cold-call for Med Supps. not Final Expense. Cross-sell Final Expense. Do it this way and the ROI is is probably 500 to 1, or even more. I get referrals for major medical, life insurance,cancer policies, and twice as many referrals as most agents do selling final expense. I just wrote a 20 man group who was a referral from the owner of the company his son runs(my ROI was 5000/1. I cold-called him and sold him and his wife a med. supp. and he said he wanted me to talk to his son.

I walked out of a house where I saved the clients 240.00 per month on their Med. Supp. and sold them each a final expense policy; total commission was $1740 which means my ROI was 1740/1.

If you use my advice and divide my numbers by 50%, the ROI is still a lot better than buying leads.

IMPORTANT: SAVE PEOPLE MONEY THEY WILL TELL EVERYONE THEY MEET. EVERY SENIOR BELIEVES THEY NEED COVERAGE OTHER THAN JUST MEDICARE. HOW MANY PEOPLE ALREADY HAVE LIFE INSURANCE OR CAN AFFORD TO ADD MORE COST TO THEIR MONTHLY BUDGET, SAVE THEM THE MONEY FIRST, THEN THEY CAN'T SAY THEY DON'T HAVE IT. 1 cold-call appointment sold will get you at least 2 more.

 

[theinsuranceman]

DaWayne..congrats to you! How often do these great sales happen? once/month? Once/6mos.? Doesn't matter because you still get paid on it. If an upline agency is selling FE leads for $20 FRESH and EXCLUSIVE..well that's a great deal for the agent....cause it costs someone $25-$40 to generate that lead. The list co., the mail house co., and the people who respond don't care what your comm.% is. If an upline took in 50 Million Dollars selling leads, that does not equate to $50 Million profit! Since you said above "you are a logical business man" you must realize that sales is not the same as profit (or loss for that matter). The upline agency loses a little $$ per lead since they sell the leads for just $20...they recoup this loss and then some with over rides.

The upline can afford this pricing model because they have the HUGE contracts (145%+ % because they generate just over 1,500,000 of production per month all to the same FE Co. Not all agencies have the clout or deep pockets to do this.

Whether you have a 70% contract or a 125% contract you will still have the EXACT same expense to generate the leads.

As said earlier cold calling works for some (very few). If you look at the top 20 producers with any FE Co. you'll see they work leads. Ask JDeasy or Hoosier Daddy or Daytona Guy. I'm only talking about FE.
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insuranceman,

I noticed you said your company is a "captive deal", we currently do very well in the health insurance market, how could we ad FE to what we do if you must be captive? Could that work? also we generate alot of our own leads online, what if we did the same for FE and do not use your leads? We are licensed in 15 states already for life.

Yes this could work. FE leads generated on line are usually not that effective for volume, the searches for FE on Google/Yahoo/MSN is rather small. You do not have to purchase the uplines's leads. The leads are there to help agents out who want them so they don't have to go around knocking on strangers' doors or calling people from a phone book or a "prospect/suspect" list or calling overworked shared "B" leads.

The "captive" part is so agents don't buy the leads (at a loss for the upline) and write the leads w/ another Co.

Call me anytime 252-292-3350 or PM me...Greg

 

[jody108]

I have sold a "ton" of FE in the last sixteen years without prospecting for it or buying leads. Med Supps are infinitely easier to prospect for, set appointments for and sell than any other kind of insurance I have sold. (I don't buy leads for Med Supps either.)

When you save money for a new client on their Med Supp it is real easy to suggest to them that they may want to consider re-investing a portion of that savings in a FE plan. What makes it so easy is that you aren't using any "new money". You are using money that they already had budgeted and were already spending.

Cross selling FE will usually double, if not more, the commission you made on the Med Supp policy.

If you would like more information please give me a call. My number is below.

Frank = Wisdom

 

[SecureHealth1]

what FE company would this be with? Can offer more then one?