What Else Can I Do To Get Pre Need Sales If I Cant Get Access To Files

[Marsh]

Hello All,

I am new to the forums but have been lurking for a few days. I have learned lots of good info. So thanks to you all!

I'm a Pre Need agent for a large funeral home. I read some of Newby's posts about the best way to get leads being from the funeral home files and walk ins.

Unfortunately, the funeral home is very saturated with agents as the owner encourages everyone that works there to get licensed and sell.

Also, the official designated Preneed person is a family member of the owner. All the owners and top people write Preneed as well.

To be able to sit in the funeral home and get walk ins, you would need to pay a hefty amount per month to the owner.

I have started out with friends and family and have gotten some sales, but I want to have a more consistent and steady source of leads.

I am thinking door to door may work due to name recognition, but am unsure of if I should work from a list or just go knock around the funeral home.

I am also considering a direct mail drop, but most of what I see are for final expense leads.

Can Anyone give some good strategies on how I could keep a steady source of 20-25 leads coming in per week for Preneed?

 

[goillini52]

Hello All,

I am new to the forums but have been lurking for a few days. I have learned lots of good info. So thanks to you all!

I'm a Pre Need agent for a large funeral home. I read some of Newby's posts about the best way to get leads being from the funeral home files and walk ins.

Unfortunately, the funeral home is very saturated with agents as the owner encourages everyone that works there to get licensed and sell.

Also, the official designated Preneed person is a family member of the owner. All the owners and top people write Preneed as well.

To be able to sit in the funeral home and get walk ins, you would need to pay a hefty amount per month to the owner.

I have started out with friends and family and have gotten some sales, but I want to have a more consistent and steady source of leads.

I am thinking door to door may work due to name recognition, but am unsure of if I should work from a list or just go knock around the funeral home.

I am also considering a direct mail drop, but most of what I see are for final expense leads.

Can Anyone give some good strategies on how I could keep a steady source of 20-25 leads coming in per week for Preneed?

You should just contact Newby about this...he's your expert.

 

[inreverse]

Homesteaders life sponsors a direct mail program, there are others.

 

[Marsh]

Thank you both. I will contact Newby and look in to Homesteaders.

 

[goillini52]

Thank you both. I will contact Newby and look in to Homesteaders.

Hahaha, if you look at your reponders you might think you're on the Planet of the Apes.

 

[Marsh]

Hahaha, if you look at your reponders you might think you're on the Planet of the Apes.

lol. Planet of the apes!

 

[Newby]

Hello All,

I am new to the forums but have been lurking for a few days. I have learned lots of good info. So thanks to you all!

I'm a Pre Need agent for a large funeral home. I read some of Newby's posts about the best way to get leads being from the funeral home files and walk ins.

Unfortunately, the funeral home is very saturated with agents as the owner encourages everyone that works there to get licensed and sell.

Also, the official designated Preneed person is a family member of the owner. All the owners and top people write Preneed as well.

To be able to sit in the funeral home and get walk ins, you would need to pay a hefty amount per month to the owner.

I have started out with friends and family and have gotten some sales, but I want to have a more consistent and steady source of leads.

I am thinking door to door may work due to name recognition, but am unsure of if I should work from a list or just go knock around the funeral home.

I am also considering a direct mail drop, but most of what I see are for final expense leads.

Can Anyone give some good strategies on how I could keep a steady source of 20-25 leads coming in per week for Preneed?

Marketing pre-need for a funeral home is a very different animal than selling FE. Your potential client base is much, much smaller. You could never get 25 leads a week ongoing with pre-need sales because your strong market is only one or two zip codes. With FE you can mail to half a state and take 3 months to re-lap your self. With Pre-need we mail the entire market area over a few weeks and you are done for a while.

But you don't need as many leads with pre-need because they are a different type of lead. They have the funeral home's brand on them. And the only people who usually respond are receptive to meeting with that funeral home. You pay much more per lead but they are much stronger leads (usually.)

But direct mail can only supplement your other work. You MUST reach out to the relatives that have had funerals at the funeral home. You MUST deliver paid off cemetery deeds (if your funeral home also has a cemetery.) You MUST deliver death certificates after funerals and assist people with filing for their life insurance claims. All these things will put you in situations where it is natural for people to talk to you about preplanning.

But you have a huge problem other than leads.

You have a funeral home that doesn't respect the position of a pre-need agent. That's a deal killer. There are a lot of funeral homes like that. In fact they all start like that. But if you are a good agent, you can't work for them until they see the light.

Preneed has a longer sales cycle and a smaller base of prospects than other types of insurance sales. And you aren't selling premium. You aren't selling death benefit. You are selling one thing. You are selling the funeral home. You are selling the owner, the directors, all the personalities that they know and usually have a relationship with is what you are selling. And you can't pitch how great they are if they are going to chop you off at the knees and steal your sale when the customer shakes hands with Merv on the way to your office.

Those guys need you because they aren't going to do the tough work. They aren't going to make the calls. They aren't going to do the follow ups. They aren't going to pay for the mailers. They aren't going to maintain a database and move people through a sales cycle. And they aren't going to close. They don't ask for the money. That's why they aren't in sales to start with.

But in a situation like you are in, if you do all the work marketing for that funeral home, you are going to stir up interest. And they are going to call Merv they ol' funeral director who worked with them on Mom's funeral. And Merv is going to write them up and never believe that you had anything to do with them calling in. And that happens over and over in those kind of funeral homes. And they can't keep any real pre-need agents. But they love when they get a new one. Because she's going to stir up some more people for them.

When you drop mail for funeral homes you will have more call ins than actual mail returns. But your funeral home staff isn't going to recognize the calls as sales leads. They don't think like sales people do. They will answer the phone and think some guy just wants to know how much caskets cost and answer his question. They don't associate that with the person is trying to figure out how to take care of everything. And they have no idea that the person called in because they have your mailer in their hand that you just paid $5,000 to drop their whole area. They think they just did a great job of answering the guy's question.

The number one thing a pre-need sales agent needs to have in place if he is going to jump in with both feet and really market pre-need for a funeral home is: the agreement that every single preneed case goes through you. Every call asking questions that doesn't have a deceased family member goes to you. And if they are letting any salaried employees (or owners) write pre-need, that doesn't work.

It's a tough conversation sometimes. And until you have a track history you probably don't have the ammo to pull it off. But you need to find a better situation because you won't make any real money there.

 

[mudhound]

I would run fast away from preneed. Almost every agent i knw that has tried it have been burned.
The leads get to one person or maybe 2 people and the "other" leads go to the preneed agent.

 

[Newby]

I would run fast away from preneed. Almost every agent i knw that has tried it have been burned. The leads get to one person or maybe 2 people and the "other" leads go to the preneed agent.

PreNeed is great if you are in a good locally owned funeral home. And if the owners believe in PreNeed and want you to grow their number of death calls.

It's not so good in most corporate owned funeral homes or in any where your funeral directors or owners are competing against you for customers.

I know a lot of PreNeed agents that have been making six figures after all expenses year after year for a long time. Once agents get in those positions they rarely come open. It's like ocean front property. There are only so many available. But every city has a few.

The bad ones are constantly looking for new hires.