Interacting with Price Shoppers

[jdeasy]

^^You do have to develop a finely tuned BS meter to succeed in this market. That just comes with practice and more practice.

Shannon is also right about building trust. That also gets easier with time and practice. My warm up is about a third of what it was 4 or 5 years ago.

You have to get their walls down before you proceed. Thatr used to take me 15 minutes or more. Now it's less than 5 minutes.

 

[PittAgent]

JD you've said many times you want to take less leads. I think you've said as few as 11 per week. With the way you do your job and not talking to people who seem uninterested and who won't give you a "why" how do you see enough people to do the 3k+ a week you do? I know your leads can't be any more magical or have less excuses than anyone else. How do you do those huge numbers on so few leads?

 

[jdeasy]

JD you've said many times you want to take less leads. I think you've said as few as 11 per week. With the way you do your job and not talking to people who seem uninterested and who won't give you a "why" how do you see enough people to do the 3k+ a week you do? I know your leads can't be any more magical or have less excuses than anyone else. How do you do those huge numbers on so few leads?

I don't know how to answer that. That's just how it works out for me. I do get quite a few referrals. I would estimate that 20% of my business is referrals.

I've averaged $4000/wk annunal premium for 5 years now on 15 leads per week. Actually less than 15 on average.

I believe I can meet my $3000/wk goal on 10 leads per week. So that's what I'm going to get from fex.

If I can't then I will just increase the weekly order.

I will say that most of the people that sned in a reply card are interested. My mindset is that they are all interested. I can set 10 to 12 appointments per week from 15 leads. Only a couple a week, if that?, will not show interest once I get in the home.

 

[PittAgent]

I don't know how to answer that. That's just how it works out for me. I do get quite a few referrals. I would estimate that 20% of my business is referrals.

I've averaged $4000/wk annunal premium for 5 years now on 15 leads per week. Actually less than 15 on average.

I believe I can meet my $3000/wk goal on 10 leads per week. So that's what I'm going to get from fex.

If I can't then I will just increase the weekly order.

I will say that most of the people that sned in a reply card are interested. My mindset is that they are all interested. I can set 10 to 12 appointments per week from 15 leads. Only a couple a week, if that?, will not show interest once I get in the home.

So you must close 6-7 a week at around $50/mo. premium? And that's out of 15 leads of less? I find my hardest part is getting in front of people. If I have 20 leads I may eventually get in front of 12 of them and sell 6 on average.

 

[jdeasy]

So you must close 6-7 a week at around $50/mo. premium? And that's out of 15 leads of less? I find my hardest part is getting in front of people. If I have 20 leads I may eventually get in front of 12 of them and sell 6 on average.

I don't track any of that. I have written over 300 applications per year for the last 5 years with EFES. My high being 340 applications.

So yeah, I average 6 applications per week. I do average over $50/mo premium. Last year it was $62.50/mo average. I haven't looked at this year's average.

I don't track that stuff either. The only reason I can recite it is because EFES tracks it. This is my last week with EFES so I won't be keeping up with it after this week.

I only care about my weekly goal of ap. It doesn't matter to me is I can get it in one application or if it takes 10.

This week it took 5

I also care about lead costs. But more as ROI than what they actually cost to buy. I don't track dials. I don't track number of appointments or no shows or how many hours I call or how many hours I work.

But it gets easier. 5 and 6 years ago I could not get this kind of production on 15 leads per week. When Travis first told me that you should set 10 appointments from 15 leads i told him he was full of shat. Now I say the same thing.

Will a new agent do that? Highly doubtful.

 

[Jack B]

I don't know how to answer that. That's just how it works out for me. I do get quite a few referrals. I would estimate that 20% of my business is referrals.

I've averaged $4000/wk annunal premium for 5 years now on 15 leads per week. Actually less than 15 on average.

I believe I can meet my $3000/wk goal on 10 leads per week. So that's what I'm going to get from fex.

If I can't then I will just increase the weekly order.

I will say that most of the people that sned in a reply card are interested. My mindset is that they are all interested. I can set 10 to 12 appointments per week from 15 leads. Only a couple a week, if that?, will not show interest once I get in the home.

How do you get referrals, thats one thing I havent figured out yet.

 

[bigjake]

Just one question JD, why in the world are you leaving EFES? Sounds like from your posts you hit the honey hole. Their contracts are about as high as anyone elses, especially when you factor the lead costs. We had some exchanges yesterday about the difference between them and Securus. I double checked today and the actual commission amounts are higher than what I had been told, at least here in GA. I guess it varies from area to area somewhat, but 3-4000 per week AP is awesome for FE. Even at 75%. I bet youre around a hundred or so.

I am just curious why you would leave that. Where are you going? I need to check THAT one out. Thanks

 

[jdeasy]

How do you get referrals, thats one thing I havent figured out yet.

I get referral because of good service. I do not ask for referrals. I take care of just about everything for my clients. If they want to change their draft date, they call me. If they change banks they call me. If they change beneficiaries they call me. It's very rare for a client of mine to call the company.

I also deliver my policies. They are not sent to the person by the company. I got away from that for a while but I got back to that about a year ago. I can't even count the number of referrals I get upon policy delivery.

I do send thank you cards to every person that buys from me and people in the FE market are very appreciative of those cards.

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Just one question JD, why in the world are you leaving EFES? Sounds like from your posts you hit the honey hole. Their contracts are about as high as anyone elses, especially when you factor the lead costs. We had some exchanges yesterday about the difference between them and Securus. I double checked today and the actual commission amounts are higher than what I had been told, at least here in GA. I guess it varies from area to area somewhat, but 3-4000 per week AP is awesome for FE. Even at 75%. I bet youre around a hundred or so.

I am just curious why you would leave that. Where are you going? I need to check THAT one out. Thanks

It was very hard for me to leave EFES and that decision was not made lightly. Part of it was just time for a change and part is for a bit higher commissions, especially on the renewals.

And I was tired of the fighting the PPL system. I was considering a change for quite some time and was actually looking at working thru a funeral home for a couple of days a week and then doing FE the rest of the time. That's probably what I would done until Travis left EFES and partnered with Newby at fexcontracting.

They really wanted me to come on board with them and I really wanted to work with them. Sometimes it's just that simple.

I am still friends with everyone at EFES and we parted on good grounds. I was given releases on all contracts and everything is good. I resigned over 2 months ago. It took until now to work through all the leads they had mailed for me.

Even though it was hard to leave I am not a look backer. I spend quite a bit of time and discussions to make a decision such as this and when the decision is made I'm all in. I don't plan B anything.

 

[bigjake]

Thanks, Sent you a pm btw, just to get some info on those renewals

 

[Funguy]

Thanks for the insightful comments Shannon.

You mention an important point regarding trust.
Any advice on how to build trust with a client at the first point of contact?

Thanks,

Funguy