Racial Profiling

I do racial profiling all the time. Not just with Indian people, but others as well.

I also do intelligence profiling. If someone is going to sit down with me, and for the next 20 minutes, I have to hear from them that they qualified for $3 Million in Life Insurance, so, therefore, getting health insurance should be no problem, and that they consider all their health problems to be "not pre-existing", then I simply move on.

I'm very lucky to be able to pick and choose who I do business with. I have sent countless referrals and leads to the internet, and never followed up.

#1 is right. Here, in Atlanta, the two largest segments of the buying public is Asian and Hispanic. And, I'm here to tell you, to of the biggest time wasters of the average agent. I send them to someone who speaks their language and move on. I have only one Asian client. He is American born, knows what is and is not covered, is comfortable with that, and I have not had any problems. I do not, however, ask him for any referrals.

Another profile I reject is the person who, because they turned 18, is no longer eligible for Medicaid. I send them to the internet, telling them they could save money that way, and I never follow up. In fact, I have a "lead card Medicaid burning" ceremony.

When I started in the business, I used to chase every one :arghh:

Now, I pick and choose who I work with:cool:


I'll never be a member of the Million Dollar Roundtable, and I'll never win a laptop. A good nights sleep is worth more to me.:yes:
 
I attended a seminar about a year ago sponsored by a local IMO. He was trying to find agents willing to sell life insurance in the Hispanic community. Even brought a guy in from South Texas who had worked with Genworth and convinced them to invest a lot of money into developing products specifically for the Hispanic community and talked about how they would comprise 25% of the US population in a few years.

This man was Hispanic and very successful. He sold mostly $25 & $50k policies. He spent a great deal of time telling us about the psyche of the Hispanic male and how we should approach the marketing of this product.

It didn't take me long to figure out that

1)I did not know the language

2) Did not know the culture

3) Did not want to spend a lot of time selling $50k policies for $40 per month

There may be money in that particular market, but not for me.

I also recall a push about 2 years ago by BX where they suggested that agents learn to speak Spanish. Seems BX had invested quite a bit of $$$ in developing Spanish language brochures & policies.

I have wealthy clients, middle class & blue collar clients. Most of my clients are female . . . about 20% are male. I have white clients, black clients and a smattering of other ethnic groups. I have Jewish clients and Gentiles. I have a few gay clients.

I don't target any one group but play the hand that is dealt. But I will not waste time with anyone, regardles of their heritage, sexual orientation or beliefs when it appears my time can be better spent with someone who is truly capable of becoming a long term client.
 
The ONLY chargebacks I have ever experienced have come from one particular group of minorities. I rarely will work leads in a metropolitan area.
 
I'm not sure if this is racial profiling...but I deliberately do not buy leads in distressed zip codes. Some of those zips are predominantly black. Some are predominantly white.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Broke is broke no matter what color you are. I try to buy leads in zip codes where people might actually have a checking account.
 
I've had great experiences with first generation Americans.

Every other culture on the face of the planet places a stronger emphasis on savings (that is a sad but true fact) and (I believe) business ownership. This makes selling life insurance and annuities much easier.

Also, after you get to the point where you can communicate with one first generation immigrant, he or she will often lead you to his relatives. Often he or she is the best English speaker in his/her extended family and is their liaison or gatekeeper regarding a lot of business matters. This makes him/her the key to a half dozen referrals. These referrals are often given before you get a chance to ask for them.

These gatekeepers were the source of the highest quality referrals of my career. Often the appointments were made by the gatekeeper before I left the first sales call. And the gatekeeper almost invariably joined me on the call to translate. After I made the first sale I basically had to show up with a pen and be willing to eat their food while the gatekeeper did my job!

That reminds me, I've had some great authentic Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, Japanese, etc. meals during these sales calls.

I can smell it now. Maybe I will give up my underwear agent status and go on some face-to-face meal calls, er um sales calls, again.

I've had great experiences with first generation Jamaicans as well although the language barrier is different. A dated a wonderful Jamaican woman for a long time and learned that the key to understanding her was to add or remove the letter "h" to/from any word I didn't understand. A Jamaican might "comb their air over their hear."
 
Last edited:
Other than learning spanish which would be a good start, what would be a good way to market to the mexican market? At this time we have a large contingency of them living here in south miss. and I suspect it is like this elsewhere.

But my reservsations about this is the fact that most of them live together, like 8-10 individuals and more in the same dwelling, which saves them more money that they can send back to mexico.

Does anyone here market to this culture that could give some insight? Because as it stands, I am not marketing to them, it just seems to be a waste of time, imo.
 
Alston, thx for the feedback. I suspect this is a much easier task face to face vs. phone sales (which is my business model).

I have been told that immigrants are better candidates for life insurance than health insurance. Have you found this to be true?
 
Sir Ringo said:
Other than learning spanish which would be a good start, what would be a good way to market to the mexican market? At this time we have a large contingency of them living here in south miss. and I suspect it is like this elsewhere.

But my reservsations about this is the fact that most of them live together, like 8-10 individuals and more in the same dwelling, which saves them more money that they can send back to mexico.

Does anyone here market to this culture that could give some insight? Because as it stands, I am not marketing to them, it just seems to be a waste of time, imo.
Click to expand...

It is good to have a social security number and to be a U.S. citizen or other legal status when anwering the questions on the apps. Not saying that most don't but it could happen that one or two is not documented :)

Winter
 
Many people speak the loudest by the things they don't say.

This is the United States of America, we speak English, we have laws that we abide by and acceptable social behavior.

I welcome all people to "our country" who come here legally to work, not to have babies on welfare. However, if you are going to live in our society, earn American dollars then learn our language and our ways, do not expect us to learn yours. We don't do things they way they did in "your country", accept our ways or maybe you would be a lot happier going back "home" to live.

It saddens me to see some of the dramatic changes that have taken place in the past several years.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top