Is the old school way of insurance sales- gone forever?

[Todd King]

I guess in my mind you sell product over the phone and you sell yourself when f2f.

But I enjoy the interaction that takes place, so I guess I'm a bit bias. I will say that I have been speaking to many remote folks these days who say they want to get back into an office setting (non-sales positions).

I enjoy my home office, but I like to work outside my home. Not quite sure how to describe that well... but all the same it is what it is.

You have to sell yourself even if you are doing it over the phone. Some people have a hard time trying to do it over the phone...and some don't.

 

[Todd King]

Which old school?

Mine is mid 80s - working a large mutual non collecting debit / book.

The year I started The Coach was replacing 'low lifes that sell Whole Life' left and right. Universal Life was the greatest thing since sliced bread @ 12%. SelectQuote was founded, term Insurance by phone.

The old agents in the office all laughed and said these part timers are a flash in the pan, UL will never replace VL or WL, No one is going to buy Life insurance by phone.
Oh, and SelectQuote and OldLine Life were running ads with $1,000,000 quotes, in 1985. Crazy!

Is 20 years ago old school?

The 20-30 olds coming into the business today will be calling the 20s old school.

Stuff changes.

And the beat goes on?

I would dare say we only have a few around here that have actually worked, "Old School". Working lead cards aren't old school. Going door to door and talking with everyone you see is old school. Back in this day and time when you asked someone for leads they showed you a phonebook or a Polk Directory.

 

[rousemark]

I would dare say we only have a few around here that have actually worked, "Old School". Working lead cards aren't old school. Going door to door and talking with everyone you see is old school. Back in this day and time when you asked someone for leads they showed you a phonebook or a Polk Directory.

I would say most agents today have no idea what a Polk Directory is.

 

[scagnt83]

I agree with the trust factor over the phone.

A lot depends on the product/situation.

The flip side is that specialists can expand their reach much more using phone sales vs. f2f. If your target is the top 20% of incomes in the US... you can run out of local prospects pretty quickly.

And its not just a product sale.

Lots of specialists who have very deep knowledge, operate phone only.
Ray and Jack here on the forum operate like that. I also operate like that at times with life/annuities.

People find them and use them specifically for the advice, in addition to the product.

Id say that MORE trust must be gained over the phone.

Harder to say no while looking someone in the face.

Very easy to just hang up the phone and never answer again.

 

[scagnt83]

I would dare say we only have a few around here that have actually worked, "Old School". Working lead cards aren't old school. Going door to door and talking with everyone you see is old school. Back in this day and time when you asked someone for leads they showed you a phonebook or a Polk Directory.

In 2006 at NYL we got a list of local business owners.

Fun times.

I had a lot more success calling on them in person vs. cold calling them.

We also bought a phone book for each new agent. They sat piled up in a closet.

 

[Life Hawk]

Phone sales, he can dress as he likes.

Not judging

So... you go commando??

 

[KRobby]

I wonder why telesales for fe apparently never caught on back when it was so much easier to sell by phone. Old school stockbrokers loved it. Heck a lot of people even made fast money pitching cellular phones.

 

[Newby]

When I was early in this biz selling Preneed insurance the Baby Boomers were too young to be prospects. We sold to the Greatest Generation. They really did have a different mindset. The men were in charge. The women didn't question their husbands.
They really were the Greatest Generation.
They used to show us charts at company conventions back then about this tidal wave of Baby Boomers that were going to age in to our target in about 12-years. There would be a huge shortage of agents as they were aging out of the biz too. It was exciting times.

 

[DonP]

When I was early in this biz selling Preneed insurance the Baby Boomers were too young to be prospects. We sold to the Greatest Generation. They really did have a different mindset. The men were in charge. The women didn't question their husbands.
They really were the Greatest Generation.
They used to show us charts at company conventions back then about this tidal wave of Baby Boomers that were going to age in to our target in about 12-years. There would be a huge shortage of agents as they were aging out of the biz too. It was exciting times.

We've been hearing about the coming shortage of agents the last 10 yrs. The avg agt 58 and 1000's retiring a month . BS . There's 5 times more agents and competition than 10 yrs ago . I think whats happened is the internet and ease of low cost leads . The turn key operation of selling and dreams of $100 k plus has attracted 100's of thousands.

10 yrs ago exactly 1 person did decent net leads Lee . You had Thad doing Jane and Steve robot leads which were atrocious . You had short fuse and a few others like Cody pushing telemarketing leads .Now you got people making appts on calandary . I'll be honest even though I've killed it with 100% dm leads . I believe we're 2-3 years away with 3-4 more rates increases of them being not profitable enough . I'm not interested in running Walmart leads for fe to get higher returns . I think one seriously has to generate your own fe leads in the future

 

[Newby]

We've been hearing about the coming shortage of agents the last 10 yrs. The avg agt 58 and 1000's retiring a month . BS . There's 5 times more agents and competition than 10 yrs ago . I think whats happened is the internet and ease of low cost leads . The turn key operation of selling and dreams of $100 k plus has attracted 100's of thousands.

10 yrs ago exactly 1 person did decent net leads Lee . You had Thad doing Jane and Steve robot leads which were atrocious . You had short fuse and a few others like Cody pushing telemarketing leads .Now you got people making appts on calandary . I'll be honest even though I've killed it with 100% dm leads . I believe we're 2-3 years away with 3-4 more rates increases of them being not profitable enough . I'm not interested in running Walmart leads for fe to get higher returns . I think one seriously has to generate your own fe leads in the future

I'm talking about this was almost 30-years ago in 1996. They were telling us about the huge shortage of agents. There was some report that had just been made and everyone had it. It had visual graphs showing the tidal wave of Baby-Boomers that were going to need our help. They had not flooded into the senior market yet. But it was coming.