Final Expense Phone Qualifying Is Working

[360]

I vote we take this thread back to the matter and hand, phone qualifying FE leads and how well Reardon and others are doing or not doing by calling first.

This is too good of a thread to get all sideways on something as black and white as 3 year old FTC guidelines.

 

[Rearden]

TD -- it's probably the best lead source I've worked, but I can say with certainty it's definitely illegal.

I bought a batch of 15 a few weeks ago and am finishing working them up -- I've written 10 policies on them so far (several are referrals) with a handful more that I might squeeze something out of. Hell, I could never do that with direct mail.

I've talked with company owners who sell these leads, and they say to look at it like a cost of doing business.

Aside from the illegality issue, let's say it's just a cost of doing business -- you're willing to shoulder settling out of court once or twice a year to generate these leads.

What if the prosecutor wants to make an example out of you to others? You can logically track the costs of advertising and control it -- you can't even begin to account for what a driven prosecutor might do to you. Especially if you have assets and are worth something.

So I'm not willing to risk it, although the first run through was nothing short of fantastic.

It's always 10 times more costly in the long run.

 

[rousemark]

I don't mean to make this personal, but good grief. Yes, it is ***totally and completely illegal to use robocalls to send unsolicited recordings to people with the ultimate goal of selling anything***. There aren't loopholes or exceptions to that. If you read the FTC information it becomes abundantly clear. Even in this thread I've discussed this and pointed to the supporting information.

-http://autodialerservices.com/ftc-robo-call-ban/, I kid you not, that makes it very clear it's illegal AND it's support with information from the FTC website, you know, the people actually enforcing the law. Seriously, take some time and read it.
-I've shown where companies are being shut down for breaking the law using robocalls
-I've Pointed to the actual law ( FTC Issues Final Telemarketing Sales Rule Amendments Regarding Prerecorded Calls )

Again, there will always be agents (and FMOs) willing to break the law to make a buck, but that doesn't change the fact that they're breaking the law.

From the FTC website:

Would appear the operative phrase is:

Permit sellers, as under the forbearance policy, to continue for one year after the rule's publication to place calls delivering prerecorded messages to consumers with whom they have an established business relationship, after which no prerecorded message calls can be made to consumers without their express permission.

 

[jdeasy]

Josh, I got to know, are you sure it's illegal?

Yeah, I wish he would just come out and say one way or the other. All this wishy-washy talk is for the birds.

 

[nfl72]

With all the thousands of people out there breaking the law does anybody have difinitive proof that an agent had to pay a fine for buying press one leads? I am not talking heresay, I am talking about hard concrete evidence.

 

[360]

With all the thousands of people out there breaking the law does anybody have difinitive proof that an agent had to pay a fine for buying press one leads? I am not talking heresay, I am talking about hard concrete evidence.

Government fine, no, but a friend of mine paid $2500 for the privilege of robo-calling an attorney. Guy made a very compelling case to him how it would be much easier to pay him vs. what was going to happen when he turned him in. Scared the crap out of me. Most people don't even think about someone pressing one that is a current or former attorney, prosecutor, etc. that do know the law.

Since I guess we're not going to let this die, humor me and think about your logic. If it were as easy as saying "gee I have no idea how the leads were generated to the FTC" all that a marketer would do is setup a dummy company to do the dialing and then claim ignorance that they had no idea how the dummy corp generated the leads. Do you really think the FTC lets it go that easy?

Odds are you'll never get stung, but thinking just because you bought the leads from a vendor you're in the clear is fooling yourself.

 

[Josh]

With all the thousands of people out there breaking the law does anybody have difinitive proof that an agent had to pay a fine for buying press one leads? I am not talking heresay, I am talking about hard concrete evidence.

So just to be clear, it's not enough for you that the companies providing these are having judgements against them in the millions of dollars and it's not enough that the companies selling the services who have a financial incentive to sugar coat it, are saying that that insurance agents are getting stuck with fines, you want proof that an agent had to pay a fine for these?

 

[rousemark]

TD -- it's probably the best lead source I've worked, but I can say with certainty it's definitely illegal.

I bought a batch of 15 a few weeks ago and am finishing working them up -- I've written 10 policies on them so far (several are referrals) with a handful more that I might squeeze something out of. Hell, I could never do that with direct mail.

I've talked with company owners who sell these leads, and they say to look at it like a cost of doing business.

Aside from the illegality issue, let's say it's just a cost of doing business -- you're willing to shoulder settling out of court once or twice a year to generate these leads.

What if the prosecutor wants to make an example out of you to others?

Can we all say Glenn Neasham in unison?

 

[Rearden]

So my results from pre-qualifying FE this week is 6 apps. Done on 25-30 leads (giving a range because some of them needed replacement and were duds).

Didn't sell one appointment because she didn't want it drafted on her husband's bank account because he's in the hospital recovering from a stroke (although she said she'll ask hubby if she can -- ya right).

Bunch of stuff in the pipeline for next week, as many of the people I talked to couldn't set appointments this week for a particular reason.

The great thing is I disqualified a bunch of leads who hadn't urgency, couldn't qualify, were broke, etc.

 

[VolAgent]

So my results from pre-qualifying FE this week is 6 apps. Done on 25-30 leads (giving a range because some of them needed replacement and were duds).

Didn't sell one appointment because she didn't want it drafted on her husband's bank account because he's in the hospital recovering from a stroke (although she said she'll ask hubby if she can -- ya right).

Bunch of stuff in the pipeline for next week, as many of the people I talked to couldn't set appointments this week for a particular reason.

The great thing is I disqualified a bunch of leads who hadn't urgency, couldn't qualify, were broke, etc.

So how does this compare to your previous production? About the same, more or less? Also, how stressful, less or more stress?