Leads Per Week

[noah]

25 direct mail leads per week is $650. That's usually the starting point that agents start writing $3,000 to $4,000 very consistently.

If you are full time FE and have a handle on getting in front of people and closing sales you should definitely bump up your lead flow from 20.

You big hitters,especially marketers like to talk about big numbers,what it takes to be a big shot.How many leads to buy,closing ratio,how much gross profit,etc....

Nobody ever talks about the quality of life that goes with running 30 leads a week 50 weeks a year.

1.The effects of driving a car 1000 miles+ per week on your body.
2.Eating fast food road garbage as a primary diet because you are running leads all day.
3.Getting home blurry eyed at 10-11 o'clock at night.
4.Time away from family,hobbies,healthy activities.

There are plenty of seasoned agents who do not buy leads,some who buy 10-15 leads a week that live very comfortably.

Is it really worth it to be a big shot ?

 

[indiana260]

You big hitters,especially marketers like to talk about big numbers,what it takes to be a big shot.How many leads to buy,closing ratio,how much gross profit,etc....

Nobody ever talks about the quality of life that goes with running 30 leads a week 50 weeks a year.

1.The effects of driving a car 1000 miles+ per week on your body.
2.Eating fast food road garbage as a primary diet because you are running leads all day.
3.Getting home blurry eyed at 10-11 o'clock at night.
4.Time away from family,hobbies,healthy activities.

There are plenty of seasoned agents who do not buy leads,some who buy 10-15 leads a week that live very comfortably.

Is it really worth it to be a big shot ?

What if you work a lot to provide I good life for your family? Would that be worth it?

 

[Newby]

You big hitters,especially marketers like to talk about big numbers,what it takes to be a big shot.How many leads to buy,closing ratio,how much gross profit,etc.... Nobody ever talks about the quality of life that goes with running 30 leads a week 50 weeks a year. 1.The effects of driving a car 1000 miles+ per week on your body. 2.Eating fast food road garbage as a primary diet because you are running leads all day. 3.Getting home blurry eyed at 10-11 o'clock at night. 4.Time away from family,hobbies,healthy activities. There are plenty of seasoned agents who do not buy leads,some who buy 10-15 leads a week that live very comfortably. Is it really worth it to be a big shot ?

Noah, 30 leads per week is a comfortable work week for most agents. The week looks like this:

Friday- Receive leads every Friday morning and participate in a group agent call where new and experienced agents discuss every aspect of selling FE insurance. Appointment setting, presentations, route planning, field underwriting and company selection, handling objections, closing, managing your business, databases, cross selling other products, proper replacements, funeral knowledge (we have an on staff funeral director), pros and cons of using appointments setters, working tele-leads vs. direct mail leads, Internet leads, etc. every agent has access to very experienced agents to discuss any question or problem they have. This is truly a weekly FE Mastermind group. 100 brains is always sharper than one. The rest of the day on Friday is usually an office day spent faxing deals from his week, checking on pending biz, entering his new leads into his mapping system for next week, etc. only other thing you do on Friday is turn in any bad leads for credit. Any lead that is younger than 55 or older than 79 is free. Blank leads are free. P.O. boxes with no phone are free. Turn the lead in on Friday to receive a brand new free lead the same day.

Saturday morning- best time to call and set your appointments for Monday. Most agents will try to set 10 appointments 1 hour apart going from 9:00am to 6:00 pm on Monday. It generally takes a couple of hours on Saturday morning to stack your Monday using Travis's methods. If you choose to use an appointment setter you just pay them and don't work at all on Saturday.

Sunday- no one works on Sunday's. All you do on Sunday is pay for the leads you received on Friday.

Monday- you have a field day running the appointments set on Saturday. You leave the house 8:30 and arrive home around 8:00 as a rule.

Tuesday - office day. Your main job today is setting appointments for Wednesday. It's tougher today because you set all the easiest ones on Saturday. But you call your unseen leads several times per day on Tuesday to set appointments for Wednesday. If you can't get your day filled off your new leads you can also call your old leads in the same zip to help fill your day. If you choose to use an appointment setter, you might use Tuesday as an additional field day.

Wednesday- field day. Same as Monday.

Thursday- if you have met your sales goals, take Thursday off. If you have not met your goals you go out and get in front of more people. May involve some door-knocking the people who didn't answer or didn't set appointments. May have to door knock old leads. You don't give up until you have met your weekly goal.

Friday- rinse and repeat

In my opinion 25 to 30 leads per week is the sweet spot where agents can stay busy but not work crazy long hours. 15 leads forces you to talk to too many uninterested people. (Unless you are JD) 40+ leads weekly is fine if your really want to go into terminator mode and work more hours. Or if you want to use an appointment setter and have additional field days.

You can avoid the McDonalds thing by packing a turkey sandwich. I seem to forget to do that most days though.

 

[Baseball7]

Morale of the story. If I want to play with the big boys, plan to work 40-50hrs a week then 25 leads spending under $600 for them is fair.

 

[hockeyday]

Morale of the story. If I want to play with the big boys, plan to work 40-50hrs a week then 25 leads spending under $600 for them is fair.

so Baseball what kinda leads do you buy to get 25 for under $600 per week?

 

[monstrhuntr]

Any lead that is younger than 55 or older than 79 is free. Blank leads are free. P.O. boxes with no phone are free. Turn the lead in on Friday to receive a brand new free lead the same day.

Honest question Newby. Actually a question for all of the per lead vendors. How do you replace a lead same day? Or for that matter guarantee a certain number? Is there a pile of leads on someone's desk? Seems like you would not always be working the freshest leads. Can you explain?

 

[JoshC]

You big hitters,especially marketers like to talk about big numbers,what it takes to be a big shot.How many leads to buy,closing ratio,how much gross profit,etc....

Nobody ever talks about the quality of life that goes with running 30 leads a week 50 weeks a year.

1.The effects of driving a car 1000 miles+ per week on your body.
2.Eating fast food road garbage as a primary diet because you are running leads all day.
3.Getting home blurry eyed at 10-11 o'clock at night.
4.Time away from family,hobbies,healthy activities.

There are plenty of seasoned agents who do not buy leads,some who buy 10-15 leads a week that live very comfortably.

Is it really worth it to be a big shot ?

LOL.

First off, you aren't seeing 30 people a week, you are buying 30 leads. Nobody is going to set all of those. Some on here say that they are able to sit 70% setting them themselves, though that seems a bit high. I buy 30 leads and use a setter. I can run up to 21 appointments a week from Tuesday through Thursday, but realistically she is able to set 15-18 of them. I never get home past 8pm and even that is rare. Many weeks I have a little bit of service work or a referral to do on Monday and/or Friday, but sometimes I don't.

Granted, I'm averaging more like $4500 a week because I don't work that hard, but the hourly rate is very good.

 

[sirherbie]

Nobody "guarantees" a certain amount of leads a week. Rgi has been mailing the same areas for a long time so has a good feel on response rates. If you order 20 leads a week the hope is Rgi get 22-25 a week. You continue getting 20 and your lead bank grows thus allowing you to get a level 20 a week even when some weeks there might only be 15 leads. Efes also does this. Keep an eye on your reserves as you don't want the lead bank to get to big as the leads will be old.If that happens some weeks buy extra.

 

[Newby]

Honest question Newby. Actually a question for all of the per lead vendors. How do you replace a lead same day? Or for that matter guarantee a certain number? Is there a pile of leads on someone's desk? Seems like you would not always be working the freshest leads. Can you explain?

Good question. One of the best things about a set price lead program is not just the set price on the leads. It's that it evens out your lead flow.

Here's how it actually works:

Agent wants 25 leads per week. We start weekly orders for 30 leads per week. Let's say the agent actually gets 22 leads his first Friday. After he reviews them one is age 53 (creditable). Turns it in to us but we have no other leads for him today. His bank draft for the next Monday will be for 21 X $26. He didn't get a replacement lead but he got an instant credit on his bill.

Next week he gets 31 leads in. We put 25 in his in box and have 6 in his bank for next week. If he has a bad one, we replace it instantly with one from his bank. Ideally we maintain a bank of leads on each agent of 5 to 10 leads every week. This allows the agent to have instant credits as well as take extra leads any time he wants to and makes his lead flow consistent any week when his lead order would come up short.

When an agent is on a 25 per week order the leads actually come in like this 28, 24, 30, 23, 31, 25, 22, 29, etc But if done correctly the agent only sees 25,25,25,25,25,25, etc. This puts him on a repeatable cycle that really evens out his business.

It's not perfect. We come up way short on occasion. If an agent comes up way short on Friday I scramble to give him leads as they come in on Monday and Tuesday.

Sometimes it's the opposite problem. We build too large of an inventory. We have to shut off his orders a week or two to sell through them. I had an agent that built up 100 leads last year that takes 25 per week. I worked a deal with him that gave him all his leads at one time and I just billed him for them over the next four weeks.

Every agency works this program differently. I've heard of other agencies that dropped off of lead orders for months at a time. We have never done that. Our orders have come in every week since we got started.

We try to keep our agents from ever having to worry about leads. It works very well. Not perfect, but close.

 

[noah]

Noah, 30 leads per week is a comfortable work week for most agents. The week looks like this:

Friday- Receive leads every Friday morning and participate in a group agent call where new and experienced agents discuss every aspect of selling FE insurance. Appointment setting, presentations, route planning, field underwriting and company selection, handling objections, closing, managing your business, databases, cross selling other products, proper replacements, funeral knowledge (we have an on staff funeral director), pros and cons of using appointments setters, working tele-leads vs. direct mail leads, Internet leads, etc. every agent has access to very experienced agents to discuss any question or problem they have. This is truly a weekly FE Mastermind group. 100 brains is always sharper than one. The rest of the day on Friday is usually an office day spent faxing deals from his week, checking on pending biz, entering his new leads into his mapping system for next week, etc. only other thing you do on Friday is turn in any bad leads for credit. Any lead that is younger than 55 or older than 79 is free. Blank leads are free. P.O. boxes with no phone are free. Turn the lead in on Friday to receive a brand new free lead the same day.

Saturday morning- best time to call and set your appointments for Monday. Most agents will try to set 10 appointments 1 hour apart going from 9:00am to 6:00 pm on Monday. It generally takes a couple of hours on Saturday morning to stack your Monday using Travis's methods. If you choose to use an appointment setter you just pay them and don't work at all on Saturday.

Sunday- no one works on Sunday's. All you do on Sunday is pay for the leads you received on Friday.

Monday- you have a field day running the appointments set on Saturday. You leave the house 8:30 and arrive home around 8:00 as a rule.

Tuesday - office day. Your main job today is setting appointments for Wednesday. It's tougher today because you set all the easiest ones on Saturday. But you call your unseen leads several times per day on Tuesday to set appointments for Wednesday. If you can't get your day filled off your new leads you can also call your old leads in the same zip to help fill your day. If you choose to use an appointment setter, you might use Tuesday as an additional field day.

Wednesday- field day. Same as Monday.

Thursday- if you have met your sales goals, take Thursday off. If you have not met your goals you go out and get in front of more people. May involve some door-knocking the people who didn't answer or didn't set appointments. May have to door knock old leads. You don't give up until you have met your weekly goal.

Friday- rinse and repeat

In my opinion 25 to 30 leads per week is the sweet spot where agents can stay busy but not work crazy long hours. 15 leads forces you to talk to too many uninterested people. (Unless you are JD) 40+ leads weekly is fine if your really want to go into terminator mode and work more hours. Or if you want to use an appointment setter and have additional field days.

You can avoid the McDonalds thing by packing a turkey sandwich. I seem to forget to do that most days though.

How did you like the Peter Walker interview ?

Will you endorse his opinions ?

Do you think your business plan applies to everyone except for JD ?

Are you being completely realistic about the work schedule you describe ?

What if you don't feel good ? What if the car breaks down ? What if the baby gets sick ? Lot of things can throw you off,right ?

How many things in life have worked out exactly as you were told ?

Tell me something,if an agent in your downline spends $930 a week for 30 leads,writes 4k a week on your contracts,how much do you put in your pocket from that block of business,less 20% for charge backs ?