FMO's and Free Leads

[midwestbroker]

I have seen a trend on this board and in the industry in general, and I guess this post is for agents who are looking for "free leads".

If you read through the thousands of posts here, and then do your own research, you will find that most FMO's who offer "free leads" have a questionable reputations.

Now, I am not saying they are all bad, but they are few and far between. Most reputable FMO's may offer discounted leads due to the volume they may give a vendor or two, but not free leads.

Moral of this post, do your homework when it comes to free leads. Remember this is your business, and it will take some time, money and work to get started.

 

[jdeasy]

No such thing as free leads.

 

[JRoot]

Well said.

If you want free leads, go work for someone. Being independent comes with the responsibility of generating or buying your own leads.

 

[Insurance Protection]

Keep hope alive for the new agents.

 

[0b1kanobee]

No such thing as free leads.

I agree but funny story. This was my first year of attempting to really throw my hat in the ring for Medicare Advantage. It didn't really go as planned. In the end though, I was actually given free leads by one FMO and one MA carrier.

The FMO leads were from people who called in and their in-house was not able to contact them. I messed around with these briefly.

The leads from one carrier were from mailers they did for me. They didn't even tell me they were going to send out mailers. One day my phone started ringing daily for about the last 2 1/2 weeks of AEP. Funny thing is this carrier doesn't even have one hospital in my county (ok I think one).

Anyway I told them I wasn't really interested in selling their plan because they had no hospitals. I was told not to worry about it and to just go ahead and sell another MA plan BUT to think of them when they would be a good fit. I've got 2 T65s and 3 new to Medicare for them in another county within the next two months. I could of put them with a few different carriers but I will think of them because they thought of me. I've never in this business had a carrier do something like that for me (mailers......and I kept log of every call and what transpired and passed it along to the carrier rep).

The cool thing is I sent an email and a thank you card to the sales manager and the regional sales manager and was told they would help me again next year only this time they would start the mailers sooner.

So while there is no such thing as free leads, I got some!! I won't mention the carrier but it's a BIG ONE. Not one of those local HMOs.

I also was given seminars to do this year. I have to admit I was nervous but I did it. I did 5 seminars on my own. I had 4 people show up. One lady came one day and she was a secret shopper. I think the only thing I got dinged on was that I didn't know how many stars the plan was. I told her I would call her or have someone call her ASAP as I couldn't get a hold of anyone while she was in my presence.

On another seminar I had three people show up. I signed all three of them up. My other 3 or 4 seminars (losing track of just how many) I had nobody show up.

Next year I want to do more seminars because they are a lot of fun and I feel like I am good at it if I can just get in front of enough people.

These free leads and seminars were not offered to me right at the beginning though. They offered them to me once they got to know me and they felt I could be trusted to follow up with the mailers and show up to do the seminars.

Anybody that offers you free stuff like leads and doesn't even know you should throw off some sort of red flag.

The point of my post was to just say that there are some FMOs out there and even some carriers who will go above and beyond if they think you have what it takes. It also doesn't hurt to be at the right place at the right time. It also doesn't hurt to be submitting business at the same time you are there.

 

[CaptiveBroke(r)]

The offer of "free leads" is nothing but a scheme to attempt to trap agents into low commission contracts.

The so-called "leads" have been rehashed many times (in some cases, every 3 months they send the same contact another letter...this is called a lead).

These FMO's don't earn on override, rather they make it the only way they can....conning unsuspecting agents and sabatoging their checking accounts whether the agents sells or not.

These same FMO's are usually the ones that make agent spit blood if they ask for a release.

New agents...don't trade the offer a high contract for an offer for free leads! They don't exist!

 

[jdeasy]

I should have said no such thing as free leads from an IMO. I did free leads from Wellcare a few years ago for being one of their top agents.

They were very good leads. It was people that had either an MA plan or thier PDP with Wellcare and had expressed an interest in getting the other. The only ones I remember not writing were the ones on dialysis that you couldn't put on an MA plan and we didn't have an SNP available.

They had a really good plan for the duals. So, yes, those leads were free but not from the IMO. The IMO did try to claim after the fact that he was responsible for them giving the leads. They did have a bit of a price, they had to written on Wellcare plans.

Anyway, that's off the topic. As we discussed this in the FE forum. There is nothing wrong with subsidized leads. The issue is the value received for that subsidy. Great training and support is worth a great deal of money. Now, if you are getting subsidized leads and not getting support and training them you are just getting hosed. That is the MO of many IMO's.

 

[DS4]

The offer of "free leads" is nothing but a scheme to attempt to trap agents into low commission contracts.

The so-called "leads" have been rehashed many times (in some cases, every 3 months they send the same contact another letter...this is called a lead).

These FMO's don't earn on override, rather they make it the only way they can....conning unsuspecting agents and sabatoging their checking accounts whether the agents sells or not.

These same FMO's are usually the ones that make agent spit blood if they ask for a release.

New agents...don't trade the offer a high contract for an offer for free leads! They don't exist!

Quoted for truth!!!!!

 

[VolAgent]

TANSTAAFL

Look it up. Even leads from a carrier aren't really "free". You've already paid for them or you are expected to pay for them through production.

 

[liquidglass]

Personally I don't see what the big fuss from agents about how "free leads aren't free" Of course someone has to pay for them, so to expect a top contract + free A leads you must be living in candy land. Might as well expect them to be set for you as well.

Leads come at a cost. Either based on your production or paid out of pocket. Moral is? Either cough up the money to afford leads or find someone offering true A leads, make the production happen until you have enough to start your own lead drops then ask for a higher contract.