Indepedent. When and how to Grow.

[HuntAssuranceGroup]

Medicare, health primary line of business

I'm going into Year 3 and curious on on to grow. Do I try to get business loan and put an agent on payroll? with a 90 day prove yourself, 30 days train and 90 days of prove it or loose it.

OR

Look for agents who are wanting change? (What change are they looking for, how do I recruit them). Keep them as an independent and make a small override off them?

OR


Hire temp or PT marketer who sends the clients to me and I focus mostly on just writing business. This person would not be licensed.


Right now I'm so busy in writing policies, servicing existing business that I'm not creating the strategic partnerships I would like to. If I had an agent to filter business too, that would free up my time to market business.

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[kgmom219]

I went with the P/T assistant route. They aren't talking to clients, but they are doing all the crap work. Running the Part D's. Address changes. Entering clients into the CRM. They get to do the Christmas cards too. Its really freed me up for networking and sales calls. One thing I have figured out that there's a limit on this model. Depending on your subsidy/non subsidy ratio, its probably at 750-1000 clients

 

[HuntAssuranceGroup]

I went with the P/T assistant route. They aren't talking to clients, but they are doing all the crap work. Running the Part D's. Address changes. Entering clients into the CRM. They get to do the Christmas cards too. Its really freed me up for networking and sales calls. One thing I have figured out that there's a limit on this model. Depending on your subsidy/non subsidy ratio, its probably at 750-1000 clients

Thanks for the feedback. I have a temp right now that is giving me 16-21 hours per week and it's a big relief. Who/what are you using for CRM? I've been with Insightly but so tired of customizing fields, considering Agencybloc

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[kgmom219]

After spending about a month doing demos and researching and reading (there's a couple of threads on here discussing it), I went with the easiest and cheapest. Google Capsule. It has everything I want, except an easy place to put DOB's. Its really inexpensive. ($12/month). All emails are copied into it by BCC the dropbox address. All my tasks (including follow up) are in there. I wake up to a fun email every morning that says "You have X tasks today"

Right now, I'm not focused on anything except keeping what's on the books and meeting this years OEP goal. In March, I plan to re-evaluate and figure out what I am going to do to grow in 2015. Unless we push group and/or Medicare, after 2/15 there's not going to be much to do.

 

[HuntAssuranceGroup]

After spending about a month doing demos and researching and reading (there's a couple of threads on here discussing it), I went with the easiest and cheapest. Google Capsule. It has everything I want, except an easy place to put DOB's. Its really inexpensive. ($12/month). All emails are copied into it by BCC the dropbox address. All my tasks (including follow up) are in there. I wake up to a fun email every morning that says "You have X tasks today" Right now, I'm not focused on anything except keeping what's on the books and meeting this years OEP goal. In March, I plan to re-evaluate and figure out what I am going to do to grow in 2015. Unless we push group and/or Medicare, after 2/15 there's not going to be much to do.

I decided on agency Bloc. And I'm happy. It's a little pricey. My thought was that my client information and making sure I have notes, follow ups, etc IS my business. So it's a true investment. For 3+ years I have tried (and used for 3 months or more) SalesForce, Insightly, Act!, Plans Plus, Radius Bob, and one more I'm forgetting. All in an effort to keep my overhead low. The commission setup is awesome. I'm not going to miss another payment that's owed yo me from a carrier. Saves a lot on the manual entry side. Not to mention, the point of contacts have been very helpful

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[LifeWorth]

Hey at least you're busy writing policies. Can't say the same about most in this forum

 

[wow314]

What is agency bloc?

 

[HuntAssuranceGroup]

What is agency bloc?

It's a customer relationship system. For me, it keeps track of all contacts. If a policy is written then it will track commissions.

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[StanTheInsMan]

None of the options you gave are solutions to what you need. Try to go after a captive agent that has been brow beat for about a year by tormenting managers and low commissions. Show them the vision of being an independent. Tell them you will support their growth and development with referrals and training that is based on mutual respect and understanding. Find someone who has a good basic set of skills and feed them to grow your business and theirs. No loans and other nonsense. Any agent worth his salt would be insulted by the thought of pay to preform structure. We are not dancing bears we are professionals. If there is a local Bankers Life office there is good place to start and find yourself a decent agent.

 

[JohnWalker]

You might trying to explore automated tools to streamline and make your marketing/customer service/day-to-day more efficient. My agency handles about 50 new business policies a month, customer service on a book about 750k-1mil in premium, and marketing with just 2 agents.