New Agent- Please Quit Buying Leads

VaDwayne

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If you are a new agent, please quit wasting your money buying leads. I know, and will admit, that what you do is none of my business, but I am posting this as a fellow agent who spent 100's of dollars doing the same thing. You are going to end up in debt, and unemployed, trying to payoff credit cards.

1. If you don't know your products inside and out, you are wasting you time
2. If you think you are buying "exclusive leads", you are being fooled and you are wasting your time
3. Lead companies make their money off of agents like you, those that charge their leads on credit cards, stay in the business 3 months, and quit, broke and unemployed.
4.You are competing with 6-10 agents for the same business on EVERY lead, and most of them have more experience than you. YOU DON"T STAND A CHANCE.

Prospect and do things that are free. If you ask enough people to buy, you will get customers. As you go along, you will get better and better at closing.

If you insist on buying leads, do it with commissions that you have coming in from previous sales.

VERY IMPORTANT: THERE IS NO EASY WAY TO MAKE MONEY IN THIS BUSINESS. IT TAKES HARD, SMART, AND CONSISTENT WORK. GET OF YOUR BUTT, AND WORK!!! QUIT LOOKING FOR THE EASY WAY, IT DOESN'T EXIST!!!

Don't charge anything on your credit cards.You will be trying to make credit card payments on top of you current bills, and you will dig yourself into a hole that you can't get out of. There are people everywhere, including this forum, that will gladly let you charge their services on your card. Speaking from experience, ONLY A FOOL WOULD DO THIS.

Don't do anything, unless absolutely necessary that will cause you to go into debt.



I am really not trying to get in your business, but I also don't want you to make the same mistakes I have made.
 
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Your Correct if the agent isn't trained properly and isn't knowledgeable in the products they are selling.

But of course I've only been in the business a year and a half so what do I know?

----Except that buying internet leads and knowing how to close them is the EASIEST sales I've ever made and I've been in very highly competitive, large decision making fields before I found my home in the Insurance business.

Not go into debt? So you propose someone has a way to get into insurance WITHOUT investing in your business. If you can't invest in yourself than why should a client invest in you as an agent? What business model that is legit and you own your business can you get into without investing any money?

Insurance is one of the lowest overhead business's you can possibly get into. Would you tell someone opening a retail store or some other business that they shouldn't have to spend a dime to do so? No that's ridiculous. Instead we should be preparing new agents for a proper number of leads per day while they learn what they are doing, get started on aged leads to get your "jitters" out of the way less expensively and 90% of new agents get total Junk for sales/product training, maybe that's where the problem is!
 
Yeah, what the other guys said. I hit the ground flying on leads in Oct-Nov last year when I had no idea what I was doing with medicare and sold a ton during AEP. I stuck to a local area like 40 miles from home and drove to appointments and did just fine.

The hardest/worst part of it is learning which company has leads that work.
 
Your Correct if the agent isn't trained properly and isn't knowledgeable in the products they are selling.

But of course I've only been in the business a year and a half so what do I know?

Me too.

----Except that buying internet leads and knowing how to close them is the EASIEST sales I've ever made and I've been in very highly competitive, large decision making fields before I found my home in the Insurance business.

Not go into debt? So you propose someone has a way to get into insurance WITHOUT investing in your business. If you can't invest in yourself than why should a client invest in you as an agent? What business model that is legit and you own your business can you get into without investing any money?

Yes, that is what I propose. I am not talking about office equipment , phone line,etc., I am referring to wasting money on leads and stuff, when you can prospect for free, given that the person is not too lazy to work a solid 8 hours.

Insurance is one of the lowest overhead business's you can possibly get into. Would you tell someone opening a retail store or some other business that they shouldn't have to spend a dime to do so? No that's ridiculous. Instead we should be preparing new agents for a proper number of leads per day while they learn what they are doing, get started on aged leads to get your "jitters" out of the way less expensively and 90% of new agents get total Junk for sales/product training, maybe that's where the problem is!

I will agree to disagree. You know and I know that the majority of people who try this business fail, and charging a bunch of crap makes that even worse, because you are now unemployed and deeper in debt.

By the way, the retail store is a terrible example, insurance agent don't need to stock shelves, have a store front, hire employees, etc., contracting is almost free, you can get used office equipment on Ebay.
 
I spend $400-$600 each week on leads and do very well. Of course, DaWayne, I know how to work leads CORRECTLY and I also use exclusive direct mail and TV leads. Internet leads are different animal.
 
Seems to me the point of this thread should be for agents to not haphazzardly take on debt that is not a part of their business plan.
It doesn't matter if the debt comes from leads, radio advertising or buying too much car.
Stay lean and mean until your business is making money.
 
Shared leads is a very difficult topic to address. I know quite a few agents, some close friends of mine who do quite well on leads and really don't understand all the hubbub.

Far too many news agents buy leads without first:

1) Intensely studying their products
2) Practicing their presentation
3) Working up the proper budget

New agents will do fine with leads if all three of the above are in order. What I see far too often is agents "scanning" the product brochures and buying leads with a $400 total budget. That's 100% failure.

If you know your products inside and out and if you have the proper budget - which is around $100 cost-per-client assuming at $500 commission = $400 net X 3 deals per week = $300 per week in lead costs X 8 weeks (minimum) = $2,400 lead budget you should do just fine.

My advice for new agents is without $3,000 liquid (not the only $3K left to your name that's earmarked for bills) stay out of buying leads.

But wait, there's more. Which products are you selling? For health insurance, are you trying to sell an off brand carrier no one's heard of with 4,560 different plan combinations? Do you have to kill benefits such as RX and wellness to make the plan competitive?

You need to ascertain which carriers are competitive in your market WITHOUT listening to your GA. Fire up an Excel spreadsheet and list the carriers in your market on the left column then list all the plan benefits across the top. Now fill in the blanks. Finally, work up apples to apples rates for each carrier and study. Then you'll see which carriers you should be representing.
 
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Yeah, what the other guys said. I hit the ground flying on leads in Oct-Nov last year when I had no idea what I was doing with medicare and sold a ton during AEP. I stuck to a local area like 40 miles from home and drove to appointments and did just fine.

The hardest/worst part of it is learning which company has leads that work.

Out of 100 agents, how many can say what you just said. No offense, but Medicare is the easiest product for someone to learn, which means the learning curve is not as steep. EVERY CARRIERS PRODUCTS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME.

You are comparing selling something that is free to almost free. Since you mentioned Oct-Nov and AEP, I assume you were pushig MA's. That is completely different than actually knowing your life insurance and health insurance products, and being able to sell the right product, for the right situation, for the right prospect, AND compete against the heavy hitters who are working the same leads

Again, comparing selling Medicare Disadvantage plans that are free, or close, is way differnet than selling life and health insurance.

Hitting the ground flying, giving something away, is not even close to the same thing as asking someone to spend more money on something a product that is going to add to the monthly expenditures, and competing against 10 other guys that are doing the same.

People that are Medicare age feel the NEED insurance, tell that to a 25-30 year old who is invincible.
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Shared leads is a very difficult topic to address. I know quite a few agents, some close friends of mine who do quite well on leads and really don't understand all the hubbub.

Far too many news agents buy leads without first:

1) Intensely studying their products
2) Practicing their presentation
3) Working up the proper budget

New agents will do fine with leads if all three of the above are in order. What I see far too often is agents "scanning" the product brochures and buying leads with a $400 total budget. That's 100% failure.

If you know your products inside and out and if you have the proper budget - which is around $100 cost-per-client assuming at $500 commission = $400 net X 3 deals per week = $300 per week in lead costs X 8 weeks (minimum) = $2,400 lead budget you should do just fine.

My advice for new agents is without $3,000 liquid (not the only $3K left to your name that's earmarked for bills) stay out of buying leads.

I know we don't agree often, but that is precisely my point. If you don't have those three things in place, don't waste your money.

Comparing to baseball, sared leads is like a junior college baseball player competing for the same job as 9 major league all-stars.
 
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It falls back on having a passion for what you do. If you're passionate you become a student of the game.

Imagine going to a CPA and they say "let's see.....hmmm, Schedule C? I think....hold on. Oh, crap, you're S corp? Let me look at my manual.... Hey, cut me a break - I got into this because I thought I could make six figures. Man is this complicated."
 
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