Update

[sbg_ben]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to give a quick update on my progress, I posted a few threads regarding generating employee benefits leads when I was first starting out. Since then, I worked closely with a nice lady in my office who used to do group benefits but now focuses only on Medicare. She allowed me to call on some of her old clients from a comission statement she had when working with groups. So far i've been able to get about 5 groups doing that (mostly small with 2-8 enrolled lives).

Other then that we have developed relationships with P&C companies in our area that don't do benefits. We have also continued to work with our local Chamber of Commerce. I am not doing much cold calling these days because I am also doing Medicare and that has kept me pretty busy.

I'm still pretty green in the business but I thought I would throw out a couple of the things that have been working for me. Feel free to share any methods you have had success with so that we can all get richer LOL. I am interested in hearing if anyone has had good success generating large group leads as that is the business segment we haven't been picking up a lot of new groups.

Thanks,

Ben

 

[InsDoc]

Thanks for the update Ben and congrats on the success you've had with the 5 groups you've been able to get. That's a start!

 

[sbg_ben]

Thanks I appreciate it!

 

[mudhound]

build on those 5
Keep doing what you did to get those.

 

[jaygreen002]

That was great, Ben. Congratulations and keep it up!

 

[WTX2WY]

I am interested in hearing if anyone has had good success generating large group leads as that is the business segment we haven't been picking up a lot of new groups.

I would be interested in this too. Rather than start a new thread figured I'd post here.

Background:
I have a lot of experience selling to individuals (500+ clients) all in a residential 1 on 1 setting, from cold d2d or referrals. Looking to branch out into small, med, and large businesses this year. For businesses that I already have clients with (or even better, claims paid) I will use my client for a warm introduction and go from there.

For the cold businesses I do not have a road map to follow. No training from agency or company. I sell supplemental health (cancer, heart, accident) but not for one of the big 3 (Aflac, Colonial, ??) so I am not familiar with their training. Most of the threads here about supplemental just bitch about companies, if there are any quality training type threads for the sales cycle of approaching employers and selling employees please share the link.

Current Plan:
Target Businesses within 100 mi:

• 20 250+ employees
• 125 100-250 employees
• 800 20-100 employees
• 5000+ 1-20 employees
• This is about a 5 county area with several 40-50k person cities and about a dozen 10-15k person cities. W Texas, so economy is BOOMING right now. High concentration of oil field and construction related businesses.

Action Steps:

• 1-20 emp: Cold approach in person, 10/day, goal to sell on the spot or get permission to speak with employees that week/next week, depending on size of business
• 20-100 emp: Cold approach in person, 5-10/day, goal to set appt with decision maker, then get permission to speak with employees this month.
• 100-250 emp: Same as 20-100 emp; also considering cold email and LinkedIn/Facebook research to find any connections for an introduction. Goal to do employee presentation within 90 days
• 250+ emp: ??? Goal to do employee presentations within 12 months

Ideas for the 250+ emp:

• Cold email HR, goal to get an appt to present to decision makers, not expecting much from this, maybe 1-2 have nothing and get back to me, low hanging fruit
• Stalk CEO/HR/etc on LinkedIn/Facebook to determine if any connections, use those connections to get a face to face
• Cold drop by when in that community
• Building relationships through community and network (this is probably best long term solution, and I will implement, but can't wait 1-5 years for those relationships to generate business, need 2018 results too)

I really have minimal experience in the business market so any ideas/criticisms would be helpful. As mentioned, I am marketing cancer/heart/accident only so advice tailored to that would be perfect, but systems that have worked for other products would still be beneficial.

Also, not looking to partner with TPAs or brokers at the moment (open to advice on it though). Undecided on payroll deduction vs individual bank draft. Prefer individual bank draft because of familiarity and less likely to be mass replaced. (open to payroll for larger groups though)


Questions for large groups:

• Effective approach to overcome the "we do all that though corporate" objection, where corporate office is 1000s miles away
• Any groups/societies/conventions/etc that are effective at meeting and building relationships with HR/decision makers
• Using a union to backdoor into employee access (I forget the name but one company specializes in unions)
• Ideal times to present to employees outside of open enrollment (safety meetings, annual refreshers, musters, etc)
• Is cold emailing a complete waste of time? How about cold phone approaching?
• Anything else

I have been procrastinating this for several years, sticking to what I know and what is comfortable, residential markets face to face. Any advice is appreciated, regardless I will be starting the cold calling now.

If this is hijacking sbg_ben's thread let me know and I'll start a new one.

And to keep in line with the OP, only looking for advice on approaching large groups (basically couch to meeting with decision maker). There are a hundred other questions from that part of the sale going forward, but that is for another thread another day.

 

[sbg_ben]

I really like your post wtx2wy, wish you the best of luck.Why aren't you looking to partner with brokers? I can understand wanting to keep the whole piece of the pie but I honestly think that partnering with brokers would be a good point of entry to get business fast.

In our area there is a whole lot of turnover in the supplemental field. If I were you one of the selling points I would bring up is how long you have been in the business and ask them how many agents they have had in that period of time. Sometimes the answer will be 4 or 5 in the last couple years.

Out of curiosity, what is your plan to get the emails for the cold emailing list? I have done about 150-200 cold emails but getting the email addresses was pretty labor intensive.

 

[Monti_Ray]

My 2 cents:

I would find some unique value proposition so that the employers will talk to me. For example, I have been hearing about an "unique" Health Rosetta (which I have no clue about) concept saving money for self-insured groups.

Disclaimer: I am in lead business (not in group health)

Monti

BestInsLeads.Com

I would be interested in this too. Rather than start a new thread figured I'd post here.

Background:
I have a lot of experience selling to individuals (500+ clients) all in a residential 1 on 1 setting, from cold d2d or referrals. Looking to branch out into small, med, and large businesses this year. For businesses that I already have clients with (or even better, claims paid) I will use my client for a warm introduction and go from there.

For the cold businesses I do not have a road map to follow. No training from agency or company. I sell supplemental health (cancer, heart, accident) but not for one of the big 3 (Aflac, Colonial, ??) so I am not familiar with their training. Most of the threads here about supplemental just bitch about companies, if there are any quality training type threads for the sales cycle of approaching employers and selling employees please share the link.

Current Plan:
Target Businesses within 100 mi:

• 20 250+ employees
• 125 100-250 employees
• 800 20-100 employees
• 5000+ 1-20 employees
• This is about a 5 county area with several 40-50k person cities and about a dozen 10-15k person cities. W Texas, so economy is BOOMING right now. High concentration of oil field and construction related businesses.

Action Steps:

• 1-20 emp: Cold approach in person, 10/day, goal to sell on the spot or get permission to speak with employees that week/next week, depending on size of business
• 20-100 emp: Cold approach in person, 5-10/day, goal to set appt with decision maker, then get permission to speak with employees this month.
• 100-250 emp: Same as 20-100 emp; also considering cold email and LinkedIn/Facebook research to find any connections for an introduction. Goal to do employee presentation within 90 days
• 250+ emp: ??? Goal to do employee presentations within 12 months

Ideas for the 250+ emp:

• Cold email HR, goal to get an appt to present to decision makers, not expecting much from this, maybe 1-2 have nothing and get back to me, low hanging fruit
• Stalk CEO/HR/etc on LinkedIn/Facebook to determine if any connections, use those connections to get a face to face
• Cold drop by when in that community
• Building relationships through community and network (this is probably best long term solution, and I will implement, but can't wait 1-5 years for those relationships to generate business, need 2018 results too)

I really have minimal experience in the business market so any ideas/criticisms would be helpful. As mentioned, I am marketing cancer/heart/accident only so advice tailored to that would be perfect, but systems that have worked for other products would still be beneficial.

Also, not looking to partner with TPAs or brokers at the moment (open to advice on it though). Undecided on payroll deduction vs individual bank draft. Prefer individual bank draft because of familiarity and less likely to be mass replaced. (open to payroll for larger groups though)


Questions for large groups:

• Effective approach to overcome the "we do all that though corporate" objection, where corporate office is 1000s miles away
• Any groups/societies/conventions/etc that are effective at meeting and building relationships with HR/decision makers
• Using a union to backdoor into employee access (I forget the name but one company specializes in unions)
• Ideal times to present to employees outside of open enrollment (safety meetings, annual refreshers, musters, etc)
• Is cold emailing a complete waste of time? How about cold phone approaching?
• Anything else

I have been procrastinating this for several years, sticking to what I know and what is comfortable, residential markets face to face. Any advice is appreciated, regardless I will be starting the cold calling now.

If this is hijacking sbg_ben's thread let me know and I'll start a new one.

And to keep in line with the OP, only looking for advice on approaching large groups (basically couch to meeting with decision maker). There are a hundred other questions from that part of the sale going forward, but that is for another thread another day.

 

[WTX2WY]

I really like your post wtx2wy, wish you the best of luck.Why aren't you looking to partner with brokers? I can understand wanting to keep the whole piece of the pie but I honestly think that partnering with brokers would be a good point of entry to get business fast.

In our area there is a whole lot of turnover in the supplemental field. If I were you one of the selling points I would bring up is how long you have been in the business and ask them how many agents they have had in that period of time. Sometimes the answer will be 4 or 5 in the last couple years.

Out of curiosity, what is your plan to get the emails for the cold emailing list? I have done about 150-200 cold emails but getting the email addresses was pretty labor intensive.

Mainly because I don't know how that works.

My only experience is selling directly to people in their homes or small business owners (and their employees) directly.

I guess I assumed a broker could just get appointed with my company and sell supplemental plans themselves and keep the full commision. That is what I would do, not knowing any better.

Do brokers let supplemental agents sell direct to groups, taking a %?

 

[WTX2WY]

Out of curiosity, what is your plan to get the emails for the cold emailing list? I have done about 150-200 cold emails but getting the email addresses was pretty labor intensive.

Good question. I assumed they would be available from the refUSA database but that appears not to be the case. Stalking? LinkedIn, company website, chamber of commerce, etc?

Have you had any success with cold emails? I feel like it is probably low, like mail drop low, but even if 1/100 led to an appointment it could be useful, if I'll be in the area.

It may turn out that just dropping by, cold approaching, worst case get a card and email. Then follow up next week. Best case get an appointment for this/next week.

I am jumping in blind here. Haha. But ready to take a beating to get out of the nights and weekends required for d2d residential.