- 546
I have spent the past month mapping out a new course for obtaining business. I do mainly health, with a pinch of life.
Just got tired of the shared internet lead thing.
Been spending $1500 a month buying leads, figured I could do as well or better creating them myself.
My budget may surpass $1500 a month at times, so I'm shooting for $18,000 for the year. I wouldn't mind spending $25,000 a year, if I was having more fun doing business.
My game plan.
Getting back to my retail roots.
Trade Shows.
Voice Broadcasting.
TV Advertising.
Expanding my product offering.
I was in retail before I started selling insurance. We were a Mall based operation with both inline stores and Kiosks. Did that for 10 plus years.
If you're in a business where you need to see people in person who have money to spend, I can't think of a better place to meet them than at a mall. It's either there, or at trade shows.
So I decided to go back into the mall. I'm not starting with an inline store, but a Kiosk. Those are the little stands you see sitting vacant in the center of the Malls this time of the year. If it works, I may consider an inline space.
I'm doing what's called a Static Kiosk, meaning it won't be staffed. That's what I love about this opportunity, I don't have to sit there. I did however, negotiate the ability to have it staffed up to 8 times a month, with no additional rent.
It's basically a 6ft x 4ft billboard smack dab in the middle of the mall. I intend to staff this myself on Saturdays, and during malls shows when there tends to be more foot traffic. Business Expos, Health Expos, Craft Shows, Antique Shows etc.. But, don't have to be there if I don't want to.
I just started setting it up today, and sold a small health policy to a gentleman who I spoke with as we were working on the display, he was there earlier getting his drivers license renewed, I sold that at 10:30 tonight when I got home.
I spent less than $300 creating the display for the Kiosk. It consists mainly of 3ft x 6ft color photo banners. My wife thinks it turned out pretty nice. I have my business cards, brochures, and a raffle box on each side promoting gift cards.
I can't say the exact cost of my lease due to language in the contract. Just think 15 Netquote shared leads a month.
I am also signing up for Trade Shows in my area. Doing the small community shows first, $25 to $250, then will work my way up to the bigger shows, $700 to $1500. I'm doing a community business expo on the 18th, it's from noon to 6pm, costs $25, it had 2000 plus turnout last year.
I love doing Trade Shows, I'm at my best when I'm in front of people.
I also made some phone calls to a local wholesaler I use to do business with. They cater to convenience stores, restaurants, that type of crowd. I told him I was doing health insurance, and asked him how much he would charge me to sit there for the day and talk to their customers, all small business owners.
I'm going to sit there Mon-Fri for the first week, so I can catch as many people as possible. Then, if it still works for the both of us, I told him I would rotate the days every week. Monday one week, Tuesday the next etc..
We are still working out the financial arrangements, but so far, I'm responsible for the daily coffee and cookies they make available to their customers for the first week I'm there.
He didn't even want to charge me, he looked at it like I was doing him a favor helping their customers save money. These guy's also have 12 locations through out the state.
I'm also working on a project with a local grocery store chain, where I rotate at each of their stores for an "Ask an Agent" idea that I have been working on. They are even willing to put the schedule in their weekly ads, which store I will be at, and what times. I would be located in the common area, by the pharmacy. Kinda like the Blood Pressure people.
So far, I haven't been hit with any dollar amount for the space, they are also looking at it as a customer service for their customers.
Voice Broadcasting.
There has been a lot of talk on the forum about this method.
I decided I'm going to give this a try as well. I have quite a bit of research into this. I did a google search, and drilled down through 25 plus pages of vendors.
Sat down over three days, and called them all. Your best bet is to find a company you feel comfortable with. Look for a company that bills in 6/6 increments, with round down billing. Meaning an 11 second call, and you only get billed for 6 seconds. Many companies charge 30/30, or 30/15 billing.
I am down to three companies before I make my decision. I may post an offer in the offers section looking for partners do joint minutes with to get the cost of minutes down. I thought about selling leads, but I'd rather try looking for partners first.
That's really the best way to do this, unless you can hit 100,000 minutes a month yourself. 1,000,000 minutes a month, and you can do this dirt cheap.
The companies are telling me to expect about a .05% to a 1.5% response rate from these calls. My reading on this board is telling me to expect 4 to 6 policies per 100 leads.
So, 100,000 dials should translate into 500 to 1500 responses, higher for B to B I'm told, which according to people who have been buying these leads, should produce between 25 to 60 sales.
100,000 dials equals about 21,000 minutes with 6/6 billing, multiply that even by 5 cents a minute is only $1050.
Divided by 25 sales= $42.00 per sale
Divided by 60 sales= $17.50 per sale
I will only be doing calls Business to Business.
TV Advertising.
I always thought it would be cool to do a TV commercial. I don't know why, just thought it would be.
I can get one made from $300 to $600. I found a source where you can edit and produce your own on-line for $99.
I spent 18 hours over a weekend 3 weeks ago making a 30 second spot, only to lose it when I tried to save it, because the software froze. I was pissed, but at least I wrote everything down so I can re-create it.
My idea with the TV spots, was to have them running on a TV whenever I do a Trade Show, or on my Kiosk in the mall so when people walk by, they say, "Hey, it's the guy's from TV. Just an idea to tie the whole package together.
Cable TV spots run from $3 per commercial on up. So for $1500 I can run 500 sports on the same channel from 5am to 12 noon, or from Midnight to 5am.
My last rambling for the evening was to obtain my P & C License. I learned a long time ago in retail, that it made more sense to open multiple stores in a strong mall, that it did to open the same store in multiple malls.
So, like in retail, it would make more sense to penetrate your client with multiple lines, than it would to find multiple clients.
I have more requests and run into more people for P & C Business, than I do for Health & Life. I also tend to get bored doing the same thing over and over. I figured doing P & C, would give me something new to learn. Plus my mall kiosk is only 60ft away for the Secratary of States office.
Even if I partner with, or bring somebody on, I still would need my license to receive commissions.
I just started to look at my business, and realized I wasn't having as much fun. So I decided to tweak my game plan, and this is what I came up with.
Just got tired of the shared internet lead thing.
Been spending $1500 a month buying leads, figured I could do as well or better creating them myself.
My budget may surpass $1500 a month at times, so I'm shooting for $18,000 for the year. I wouldn't mind spending $25,000 a year, if I was having more fun doing business.
My game plan.
Getting back to my retail roots.
Trade Shows.
Voice Broadcasting.
TV Advertising.
Expanding my product offering.
I was in retail before I started selling insurance. We were a Mall based operation with both inline stores and Kiosks. Did that for 10 plus years.
If you're in a business where you need to see people in person who have money to spend, I can't think of a better place to meet them than at a mall. It's either there, or at trade shows.
So I decided to go back into the mall. I'm not starting with an inline store, but a Kiosk. Those are the little stands you see sitting vacant in the center of the Malls this time of the year. If it works, I may consider an inline space.
I'm doing what's called a Static Kiosk, meaning it won't be staffed. That's what I love about this opportunity, I don't have to sit there. I did however, negotiate the ability to have it staffed up to 8 times a month, with no additional rent.
It's basically a 6ft x 4ft billboard smack dab in the middle of the mall. I intend to staff this myself on Saturdays, and during malls shows when there tends to be more foot traffic. Business Expos, Health Expos, Craft Shows, Antique Shows etc.. But, don't have to be there if I don't want to.
I just started setting it up today, and sold a small health policy to a gentleman who I spoke with as we were working on the display, he was there earlier getting his drivers license renewed, I sold that at 10:30 tonight when I got home.
I spent less than $300 creating the display for the Kiosk. It consists mainly of 3ft x 6ft color photo banners. My wife thinks it turned out pretty nice. I have my business cards, brochures, and a raffle box on each side promoting gift cards.
I can't say the exact cost of my lease due to language in the contract. Just think 15 Netquote shared leads a month.
I am also signing up for Trade Shows in my area. Doing the small community shows first, $25 to $250, then will work my way up to the bigger shows, $700 to $1500. I'm doing a community business expo on the 18th, it's from noon to 6pm, costs $25, it had 2000 plus turnout last year.
I love doing Trade Shows, I'm at my best when I'm in front of people.
I also made some phone calls to a local wholesaler I use to do business with. They cater to convenience stores, restaurants, that type of crowd. I told him I was doing health insurance, and asked him how much he would charge me to sit there for the day and talk to their customers, all small business owners.
I'm going to sit there Mon-Fri for the first week, so I can catch as many people as possible. Then, if it still works for the both of us, I told him I would rotate the days every week. Monday one week, Tuesday the next etc..
We are still working out the financial arrangements, but so far, I'm responsible for the daily coffee and cookies they make available to their customers for the first week I'm there.
He didn't even want to charge me, he looked at it like I was doing him a favor helping their customers save money. These guy's also have 12 locations through out the state.
I'm also working on a project with a local grocery store chain, where I rotate at each of their stores for an "Ask an Agent" idea that I have been working on. They are even willing to put the schedule in their weekly ads, which store I will be at, and what times. I would be located in the common area, by the pharmacy. Kinda like the Blood Pressure people.
So far, I haven't been hit with any dollar amount for the space, they are also looking at it as a customer service for their customers.
Voice Broadcasting.
There has been a lot of talk on the forum about this method.
I decided I'm going to give this a try as well. I have quite a bit of research into this. I did a google search, and drilled down through 25 plus pages of vendors.
Sat down over three days, and called them all. Your best bet is to find a company you feel comfortable with. Look for a company that bills in 6/6 increments, with round down billing. Meaning an 11 second call, and you only get billed for 6 seconds. Many companies charge 30/30, or 30/15 billing.
I am down to three companies before I make my decision. I may post an offer in the offers section looking for partners do joint minutes with to get the cost of minutes down. I thought about selling leads, but I'd rather try looking for partners first.
That's really the best way to do this, unless you can hit 100,000 minutes a month yourself. 1,000,000 minutes a month, and you can do this dirt cheap.
The companies are telling me to expect about a .05% to a 1.5% response rate from these calls. My reading on this board is telling me to expect 4 to 6 policies per 100 leads.
So, 100,000 dials should translate into 500 to 1500 responses, higher for B to B I'm told, which according to people who have been buying these leads, should produce between 25 to 60 sales.
100,000 dials equals about 21,000 minutes with 6/6 billing, multiply that even by 5 cents a minute is only $1050.
Divided by 25 sales= $42.00 per sale
Divided by 60 sales= $17.50 per sale
I will only be doing calls Business to Business.
TV Advertising.
I always thought it would be cool to do a TV commercial. I don't know why, just thought it would be.
I can get one made from $300 to $600. I found a source where you can edit and produce your own on-line for $99.
I spent 18 hours over a weekend 3 weeks ago making a 30 second spot, only to lose it when I tried to save it, because the software froze. I was pissed, but at least I wrote everything down so I can re-create it.
My idea with the TV spots, was to have them running on a TV whenever I do a Trade Show, or on my Kiosk in the mall so when people walk by, they say, "Hey, it's the guy's from TV. Just an idea to tie the whole package together.
Cable TV spots run from $3 per commercial on up. So for $1500 I can run 500 sports on the same channel from 5am to 12 noon, or from Midnight to 5am.
My last rambling for the evening was to obtain my P & C License. I learned a long time ago in retail, that it made more sense to open multiple stores in a strong mall, that it did to open the same store in multiple malls.
So, like in retail, it would make more sense to penetrate your client with multiple lines, than it would to find multiple clients.
I have more requests and run into more people for P & C Business, than I do for Health & Life. I also tend to get bored doing the same thing over and over. I figured doing P & C, would give me something new to learn. Plus my mall kiosk is only 60ft away for the Secratary of States office.
Even if I partner with, or bring somebody on, I still would need my license to receive commissions.
I just started to look at my business, and realized I wasn't having as much fun. So I decided to tweak my game plan, and this is what I came up with.
