Starting With Securus

[Todd King]

Yeah, I remember Larry coming on here stating that they have a great "proprietary" lead system and that they NEVER resell the leads.

Seems even the "Executive Conference Room boys" don't even know how they run their own company!

 

[WinoBlues]

Man! That piece offered everything but ice cream. For only pennies a day. I am going to call them to "pay 100% of funeral cost" for my late 70s mother. With her counter and refrigerator full of meds and wheel chair.

That being said, I wonder if they sell aged FE leads to non contracted agents. I may be interested in that.

 

[jdeasy]

Man! That piece offered everything but ice cream. For only pennies a day. I am going to call them to "pay 100% of funeral cost" for my late 70s mother. With her counter and refrigerator full of meds and wheel chair.

That being said, I wonder if they sell aged FE leads to non contracted agents. I may be interested in that.

Not too much different than most FE mailers. I'm sure they have some sort of GI to ofer to everyone.

I would take more issue with my lead being resold than the wording on the lead. That's NAA type stuff if they are actually reselling the leads.

 

[SamJackson]

I would take more issue with my lead being resold than the wording on the lead. That's NAA type stuff if they are actually reselling the leads.

They are. Not sure if the new agents are reading their contract very carefully.

"exclusively yours for 35 days!"

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Yeah, I remember Larry coming on here stating that they have a great "proprietary" lead system and that they NEVER resell the leads.

Seems even the "Executive Conference Room boys" don't even know how they run their own company!

Here's what he said: (Larry Dickstein at Securus):

TPA-As you are well aware, there are positives and negatives with every marketing organization out there. Some positives are as follows; Securus provides a lead "guarantee" at $20.95. No matter how poor the response is, we will fulfill all lead orders at that price. These leads are in fact subsidized most of the time as we are usually into the lead for more than the $20.95 we charge. Additionally, we want to maintain the $20.95 price for the lead for many years to come. As you know most leads cost between $25 and $30 if you do them yourself.

Currently we do not charge for a lead more than one time. However, this is likely to change in the future as we are getting closer to that becoming a reality. In the past, it was our goal to provide these secondary leads for new agents that could not afford to pay $20.95 per lead. So we would provide them a reduced comp. and allow them to enter the business. This program did not work. When people don't have skins in the game they simply do not work the leads. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOUR EXAMPLE OF THE 5TH OF THE MONTH AND VACATIONS ARE UNDERSTOOD. OUR PLATFORM ALLOWS FOR EXCEPTIONS ON AN AS NEEDED BASIS.

We also have what is known as PI Leads. These leads we purchase from an outside lead source that are a year old or possibly more that were direct mail replies and we provide them to anyone in our field that requests them for exactly what we pay for them. They are very inexpensive but I can't give you the price on the Forum. Other organizations won't tell you they are redirecting leads. We choose to have full disclosure. Please note that if a lead is sold, it is immediately removed from the database.

On another note, it is the company's belief that one persons older leads can become another persons gold. We all know this business well enough to say that agents work their their leads from freshest to oldest usually. The older leads go on the bottom of the pile (of course there are exceptions to every statement). This has turned out to be a very good opportunity for the agents that purchase these leads. Please keep in mind that the company subsidizes the lead cost. In exchange we are probably going to try and recover that cost in the future.

To really grasp the value added by Securus, one must understand the entire platform. For example, Securus does not have custom compensation grids from their carriers that lowers renewals or lowers first year comp. on a Return of Premium product like other IMO's. We choose to be upfront in all of our approaches. It is a cleaner way to do business. After all, eventually the cat gets out of the bag and becomes a very bad business practice.

Lastly, this is the way we choose to do business. I can't stress enough that Securus (or any other IMO) is not for everyone. It does not mean we are great, it does not mean we are terrible. It simply means we are what we are and we are not for everyone. It does not make us bad people. It does not make us good people. It is our business model. It is upfront, it is honest and nothing is hidden. I am here to provide accurate information. I think it would be refreshing to see another large National Marketing Organization or two Executive's come on the Forum and provide full disclosure as we have.

 

[jdeasy]

Well, he did say it was subject to change. Obviously it has.

 

[SamJackson]

Well, he did say it was subject to change. Obviously it has.

JD,

Does Equita re-sell your leads after you've sat with them?
Maybe while you're waiting on that first premium to draft (within 30 days of the sit?)

Interesting thread just started (not sure why in another thread):
Securus Leads For An Ex Health Agent

Got an ex health agent of mine that just signed on with Securus 2 months ago

Real good solid agent, tried to convince him to go solo but.. eh, whattya gonna do

Anyway.. He paid for 50 leads about 7 weeks ago and has only gotten back 12 so far. They been feeding him these $3 recycled leads. He told me they told him they would get him as many leads as he ordered

Said outta the 12 so far, 3 houses were empty, 7 other people said they bought 2 months ago

He said Securus doesnt send the agents the actuall card and theres no identifying marks on the e-mailed leads that has the agents initials or anything

Wheres that hack Dickstein at?

I asked him about this and he said that they do have identifying marks on leads per order and that every order placed gets the leads...

BS.. they resell them after 30 days

My friend thinks they been selling him 90 day leads and pawning them off as the $21 dollar fresh leads

Tread lightly mi amigos

Bought two months ago? Sounds like a natural result of the new, re-selling your leads policy.

Suddenly, the cost sharing is revealed and their 1/3 subsidization of the leads is shown to be BS.

They have an IMAGE of the lead (provided by Mainstreet Powermail), so they can re-hash that image as needed via a simple database. They never get the actual card back (which increases the value of the leads, were you to mail them yourself.)

'

 

[jdeasy]

JD,

Does Equita re-sell your leads after you've sat with them?
Maybe while you're waiting on that first premium to draft (within 30 days of the sit?)


'

Not to my knowledge. They say they don't and it's never happened to me where one of my leads has been re-sold to someone else. That's in over three years with EFES.

They do have the "shopping cart" where an agent can buy old leads. I have used it myself. All the ones I have bought from there were originally sold another agent, but those agents no longer work with EFES.

I have never seen one of my old leads on there for sale. It would be very difficult for EFES to re-sell your leads anyway. There are protected territories with EFES. If they re-sold them they would be selling them back to the original agent. Unless someone was poaching. That would be easily figured out in no time.

Something else, with EFES the leads have a code on them for the agent they were mailed for. You would know immedicately if it was someone else's lead.

 

[SamJackson]

Makes sense to me.

In comparing the two organizations, seems like Equita is still a good choice, if you're into taking reduced comp for someone else controlling your lead flow.

Or you could mail 2,000 cards per week and run with higher first and renewal commissions...

Not to my knowledge. They say they don't and it's never happened to me where one of my leads has been re-sold to someone else. That's in over three years with EFES.

They do have the "shopping cart" where an agent can buy old leads. I have used it myself. All the ones I have bought from there were originally sold another agent, but those agents no longer work with EFES.

I have never seen one of my old leads on there for sale. It would be very difficult for EFES to re-sell your leads anyway. There are protected territories with EFES. If they re-sold them they would be selling them back to the original agent. Unless someone was poaching. That would be easily figured out in no time.

 

[jdeasy]

Makes sense to me.

In comparing the two organizations, seems like Equita is still a good choice, if you're into taking reduced comp for someone else controlling your lead flow.

Or you could mail 2,000 cards per week and run with higher first and renewal commissions...

That's true if the numbers worked in your favor. Every person should do the math. I have done the math and I have done my own mailers.

I would have to mail 2200 pices per week every week to get 15 leads every week. That's $880/wk or almost $46,000 in annual lead costs.

I have paid less than $10,000 in lead costs this year with EFES. My contracts are 100 to 110%. Just how much am I giving up to have 15 leads in my box every Sat. morning and they are all in the same county?

The way I've figured it I would make about $5000 more per year. {EFES makes more than $5000 on me because they can do the mailings much cheaper than I could because they have their own mailhouse}.

What would I have to do for that extra $5000? I would have to coordinate all my mailings. I most certainly would not get tham all back in the same county at the same time, so I would have administrative costs to have someone do it or my own time involved to do it myself. I would almost certainly have to change my schedule from the way I have two call days and two field days per week.

Then I would have to maintain the same production I do now or I would be in the red at the end of the year.

The EFES system is perfect for me. Is it for everyone? No, it's not. I don't know if Michigan still gets the high returns like they used to, but at one time they were getting around a 3% return. If I could get anywhere close to that I would be doing my own mail.

For my figures I counted on a .07% return here for me to have to mail 2200 pieces per week. Actually my best county here is .07% return. many are .05%. One county has returned .03% for the last tow EFES mailings. A couple of my own mailings like that would eat up that $5000 in a hurry.

And this is without even going into the excellent training and support from EFES.

My partnership with Travis Tubbs and EFES is the best thing I ever did in this business.

 

[BenS]

Ugh... Sorry for taking a family vacation. Give me an hour or so to un-pack my bags and I'll respond to all this.