How Will Prospecting Change After September

[Tom Highway]

As i understand it, autodialers (and live transfers?) will not be able to be used for consumers after September of 2009. This is a part of my prospecting sources for FE sales, and I'm just wondering what some of the rest of you think will happen to you once September rolls around.

Will you do only mailers?

Will autodialers be illegal all the way around, or is it ok if you have the live transfer option?

 

[brkrsrevolution]

Any autodialer that plays a pre-recorded message will be illegal effective september 1. Auto dialers and live transfers will still be allowed as long as you have a live telemarketer doing the talking. This means these leads will probably be either not available at all or the cost will be extremely high to cover the telemarketers payroll. We are planning on doing more mailers and spending additional money on our PPC advertising of our websites to generate additional leads.I guess we will just have to go back to doing what we did before autodialers, mail more direct mail leads and cross sell. It will be very easy to get in the doors of these people talking about medicare and then letting them know you offer final expense too.I would be very interested in hearing more ideas to market final expense at that point too. I have an agent who is marketing final expenses through churches and making the church as the beneficiary, he seems to be doing well. The clients enjoy being able to leave a large lump sum to their church by only paying a small monthly premium now. Works for him.Let's hear some more ideas!!!

 

[Tom Highway]

I've always been interested in doing the church circuit. If you can get some info from your friend, I'd like to know some info about how he/she got started doing that, and lessons learned. Things like what is the ideal size of a church, what are some of the things to say and not say when talking to a pastor about doing a presentation, what type of churches, if any, get better results.

This, to me, is a great way to get leads that would benefit the church and the church members.

Any autodialer that plays a pre-recorded message will be illegal effective september 1. Auto dialers and live transfers will still be allowed as long as you have a live telemarketer doing the talking. This means these leads will probably be either not available at all or the cost will be extremely high to cover the telemarketers payroll. We are planning on doing more mailers and spending additional money on our PPC advertising of our websites to generate additional leads.I guess we will just have to go back to doing what we did before autodialers, mail more direct mail leads and cross sell. It will be very easy to get in the doors of these people talking about medicare and then letting them know you offer final expense too.I would be very interested in hearing more ideas to market final expense at that point too. I have an agent who is marketing final expenses through churches and making the church as the beneficiary, he seems to be doing well. The clients enjoy being able to leave a large lump sum to their church by only paying a small monthly premium now. Works for him.Let's hear some more ideas!!!

 

[Frank Stastny]

It will be very easy to get in the doors of these people talking about medicare and then letting them know you offer final expense too.

I agree.

In my experience Medicare Supplements are the easiest kind of insurance to market. Every senior believes that they need additional coverage, that just having Medicare isn't enough. The agent doesn't first have to convince the prospect that they "need" the insurance. Isn't that half of the battle most of the time?

Medicare is making HUGE changes in the Medicare Supplement policies that will be available. All seniors are going to want to know what those changes are. Many of them will be able to take one of the new plans and save money.

FE becomes very easy to sell when you can show a senior that they are going to save several hundred dollars a year on their Medicare Supplement policy. What better place to put the money they saved than in a FE policy? They have increased their insurance portfolio without increasing the cost to them.

The agent gets the first year commission "boost" in their income with FE and the long term renewals from the Med Supp.

Oh, I almost forgot, Med Supps can be very successfully marketed without the need to purchase leads. I have been doing that successfully for a long time.

 

[somarco]

Seminars, when done properly and effectively are not sales pitches. Rather they exist to inform attendee's about options, provide resources for their questions, and to show your abilities as a professional advisor.

Anything less is a waste of your money and their time.

 

[Frank Stastny]

Seminars, when done properly and effectively are not sales pitches. Rather they exist to inform attendee's about options, provide resources for their questions, and to show your abilities as a professional advisor.

Anything less is a waste of your money and their time.

Spot on!

Any agent who thinks that getting up in front of a group of people and "pitching" an insurance policy is going to generate a ton of apps is dreaming.

The agent better have an extremely well planned and informative presentation specifically designed to educate the group. The way the information is presented must be both interesting and logical in nature, not just emotional.

If the agent cannot assume the position of a teacher and not that of an insurance agent, it would be best for them to not even try to do a seminar. It is like trying to teach a pig to sing. It is very frustrating and really pisses off the pig.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

Seminars, when done properly and effectively are not sales pitches. Rather they exist to inform attendee's about options, provide resources for their questions, and to show your abilities as a professional advisor.

Yeah, but how's he supposed to make any money off the church crowd?

 

[somarco]

Some church members have lot's of money. They don't give it all to God.

 

[darkstar]

For the last 2 years, my company has collected ELECTRONIC AUTHORIZATIONS(before and not attached to any sales call for compliance)...We are at almost 300,000 homeowners that have authorized this, if we can help you now(if we have enough authorizations in your area), or after the 30th, let us know, we ARE compliant!....

 

[myinsurebiz]

For the last 2 years, my company has collected ELECTRONIC AUTHORIZATIONS(before and not attached to any sales call for compliance)...We are at almost 300,000 homeowners that have authorized this, if we can help you now(if we have enough authorizations in your area), or after the 30th, let us know, we ARE compliant!....

You can't "resell" a list. The consumer has to have opted in to receive YOUR specific information - nice try.

Tom