Home Improvement Sales Rep Looking To Slowly Transition Into FE and Medicare

[AMitch]

Hello all,

I am looking for to get starting in the insurance industry.28 years old and have no kids. My work history has extensively been around the sales world including 1 year of door to door canvassing for a siding and roofing company, 1.5 years of phone sales primarily towards business to business clients, and lastly now where I am a residential sales rep for a flooring company at 3 years and counting. We do have set leads that are appointed and are very warm typically.

I have researched these forums for roughly about 2 weeks and am coming to the terms that it will be a long term plan. Obviously, I plan to get licensed and any documents needed. I am willing to put aside my 2 off days part-time towards a transition into Final Expense and cross selling Medicare until finding out the right number to go full-time. My main questions are

1.What do you recommend in terms of a captive agency or become independent and find a suitable mentor online? So far, I find Nick's Medicare Millionaire approach very appealing and watch some of Duford's videos.

2. If you ranked your closing rate on these approaches, which ones where best? DM, facebook leads, TV leads, telemarketing .

3. Anything else to be aware about besides me coming from a different side of sales?

 

[Real_AMG]

1. It depends on how much money you have saved and how well you know the business. If I were you, I would put your FE contracts with an IMO that specializes with FE, and your Medicare contracts with an FMO that specializes with Medicare. If you’re jumping into the FE marketplace first, you’ll want at least 5k saved for your initial direct mail marketing costs. Duford and others are great resources for FE, however I would look to FMO’s such as Ritter or Neishloss and Fleming for your Medicare contracts.

2. DM closing ratios will always be higher. These days especially, telephonic-based leads are very tough to come by for independents.

3. Make sure you have cash saved. Make sure you understand basic accounting. Make sure to work with FMO’s that know what they’re doing. I’m a big fan of Bill Kiray with Neishloss and Fleming for Medicare, and Ben Boman with Final Expense Services for FE. But there are many other good ones.

 

[AMitch]

Thank you for that piece of information. I will look in to those FMO's.

So DM's are number 1.

Okay, I will check into those people as well.

 

[Markthebroker]

Hello all,

I am looking for to get starting in the insurance industry.28 years old and have no kids. My work history has extensively been around the sales world including 1 year of door to door canvassing for a siding and roofing company, 1.5 years of phone sales primarily towards business to business clients, and lastly now where I am a residential sales rep for a flooring company at 3 years and counting. We do have set leads that are appointed and are very warm typically.

I have researched these forums for roughly about 2 weeks and am coming to the terms that it will be a long term plan. Obviously, I plan to get licensed and any documents needed. I am willing to put aside my 2 off days part-time towards a transition into Final Expense and cross selling Medicare until finding out the right number to go full-time. My main questions are

1.What do you recommend in terms of a captive agency or become independent and find a suitable mentor online? So far, I find Nick's Medicare Millionaire approach very appealing and watch some of Duford's videos.

2. If you ranked your closing rate on these approaches, which ones where best? DM, facebook leads, TV leads, telemarketing .

3. Anything else to be aware about besides me coming from a different side of sales?

It sounds like you have a lot of experience selling products. Have you ever sold a service?

 

[sshafran]

Hello all,

I am looking for to get starting in the insurance industry.28 years old and have no kids. My work history has extensively been around the sales world including 1 year of door to door canvassing for a siding and roofing company, 1.5 years of phone sales primarily towards business to business clients, and lastly now where I am a residential sales rep for a flooring company at 3 years and counting. We do have set leads that are appointed and are very warm typically.

I have researched these forums for roughly about 2 weeks and am coming to the terms that it will be a long term plan. Obviously, I plan to get licensed and any documents needed. I am willing to put aside my 2 off days part-time towards a transition into Final Expense and cross selling Medicare until finding out the right number to go full-time. My main questions are

1.What do you recommend in terms of a captive agency or become independent and find a suitable mentor online? So far, I find Nick's Medicare Millionaire approach very appealing and watch some of Duford's videos.

2. If you ranked your closing rate on these approaches, which ones where best? DM, facebook leads, TV leads, telemarketing .

3. Anything else to be aware about besides me coming from a different side of sales?

Grasshopper - I knocked thousands of doors and set appointments for roofing/siding (storm damage inspections, leading to roofing and siding work).

I actually did both roofing/siding (heavy in summer) and medicare until my medicare renewals were about 100k, then dropped contracting work.

If you can knock a neighborhood, then you have skin thick enough to do this.

 

[AMitch]

It sounds like you have a lot of experience selling products. Have you ever sold a service?

Well, during my business to business calling experience I worked under a recruiting service(which I have no real interest to so in this industry) for manufacturing and technician oriented people but we also handled the selling of their contract on to the hiring managers.

 

[AMitch]

Grasshopper - I knocked thousands of doors and set appointments for roofing/siding (storm damage inspections, leading to roofing and siding work).

I actually did both roofing/siding (heavy in summer) and medicare until my medicare renewals were about 100k, then dropped contracting work.

If you can knock a neighborhood, then you have skin thick enough to do this.

That's awesome. I am looking to go up a similar route to that one. What was your main source? Direct mail the best route as everyone has been saying?

 

[sshafran]

That's awesome. I am looking to go up a similar route to that one. What was your main source? Direct mail the best route as everyone has been saying?

There are many ways to skin a cat and sometimes we overthink it. This past week I heard of an agent that exclusively gets leads by really connecting with small local (non-chain) pharmacies.

My main source was mail, first direct mail with lead cards then letters. Actually, before I could afford to mail, I cold-called and worked internet leads, but that was a long time ago. I also did a little bit of canvassing for final expense and medicare and worked final expense lead cards and cross-sold Medicare. But the majority of my book is from letters.

I talked with an agent a few months back and he has spent $0.00 on marketing and has over 1,000 medicare clients. He's super outgoing and "tells everyone" that he can help them, or if he meets someone who is younger - he'll mention that he can help their parents/uncles with Medicare. He walks into P&C shops, meets financial advisors, tells nurses.... if you are his barista tomorrow at Starbucks, he'll let you know that he can help your Mom figure out Medicare. He just networks networks networks.

That's not me - by a longshot. I personally have walked up to exactly 0 people in my life and introduced myself and struck up a conversation and handed them a business card. Other than door-to-door, which is somehow more natural to me than having a casual conversation with the lady in the Walmart grocery line....

It's a mix of time, money, personality... some agents do nothing but SEO for their websites and they generate calls. Like I said, a lot of ways to do it.

 

[AMitch]

Awesome and thanks for the detailed information. Been working on acquiring the couple of credentials that are needed. Also, I have selected my 2 FMO's to begin and they include Todd King's and Ritter. Any other's to get involved with starting out along with Medicare side? How many total should be sufficient?

 

[sshafran]

Awesome and thanks for the detailed information. Been working on acquiring the couple of credentials that are needed. Also, I have selected my 2 FMO's to begin and they include Todd King's and Ritter. Any other's to get involved with starting out along with Medicare side? How many total should be sufficient?

You need the big names (UHC, Aetna, MoO, Humana, Cigna, Anthem or whatever Blue is in your state) then sprinkle a few low price ones to round it out.

Re: FMOs, Check out Western Marketing. Good group. One of the best I've ever worked with.