Experience annuity agents this is for you. You've just finished you first year in the space and by the standards of many your doing well and written about $2MM in business utilizing your partnership network. The problem is your partnership is with another licensed agent who's main business is preparing taxes for a 2k client book of business and your commissions are 50% of street comp. You've held your seminar, spent $9K and landed 0 business. Needing to do more and branch out you realize you are down to your last $15K. What are you doing to brand and market yourself to acquire new leads?
You now have a budget of $15k
- Thread starter Narwhal
- Start date
Just one seminar cost 9k. Thats not the way to run a business. Seminars work when you offer them consistently and they dont work for all advisors. Just one seminar wont amount to anything. If your 1st year sales were from a network, its highly likely you have not developed prospecting skills. Go sell term life or final expense or get a job at a call center if you only have 15k. You wont make it in the annuity world with 15k. It is a long grind.
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- #3
Thank you for the response. I left the car business as a finance manager for the final expense side. I sold about 82k in 6 months door knocking and ate about 40k in charges backs. It's a hard sell (not hard to sell) and felt very similar to car sales. Closing people on things they want be obviously can't afford. I wasn't a fan.
Can you explain what steps you have taken to get where you are? Thanks
- 10,582
First and foremost, ask for referrals from your existing clients.
"Hey, you are great and I really value the type of client you are. Not everyone is like you! I grow my business mostly by word of mouth. And I need more clients like you. There is a good chance you probably know a few people similar to you, who would benefit from how I help clients. Would you be willing to introduce me to 2 or 3 friends like that?"
IF you do a seminar, dont feed people. Water/coffee/soda/snacks are all you need. If you need a location, choose the public library.
This not only reduces cost, but it eliminates the plate lickers and gets you people who are actually interested in the subject matter. However, it will reduce response rate as well. But it will be a smaller pool of much more interested prospects.
Try online ads promoting MYGA rates, instead of seminars. But you will need at least a basic website. And you will need decent looking ads. You will end up selling some FIAs as well.
If you are good at door knocking, go door knock for annuities!! Not FE...
Just choose a different neighborhood. Not the nicest in town, not the worst, somewhere in the middle with a good amount of people 55+.
MYGA rates are very easy to market and tell people about. And you will sell some FIAs while doing it. Edward Jones reps still door knock to this day for investment clients. It can work.
If you want to buy leads, buy term leads. $15k goes a long way with term leads. And you will not have the chargebacks like you do with FE. Different demographic. Plus you could cross-sell DI to them.
Network. You have a "natural market" with the people/places you normally go. Dont "sell" them, just tell them how you help people, and ask if they are in a position to speak to you about it. Sell them term/wl/gul/di/annuities/etc.
"Hey, you are great and I really value the type of client you are. Not everyone is like you! I grow my business mostly by word of mouth. And I need more clients like you. There is a good chance you probably know a few people similar to you, who would benefit from how I help clients. Would you be willing to introduce me to 2 or 3 friends like that?"
IF you do a seminar, dont feed people. Water/coffee/soda/snacks are all you need. If you need a location, choose the public library.
This not only reduces cost, but it eliminates the plate lickers and gets you people who are actually interested in the subject matter. However, it will reduce response rate as well. But it will be a smaller pool of much more interested prospects.
Try online ads promoting MYGA rates, instead of seminars. But you will need at least a basic website. And you will need decent looking ads. You will end up selling some FIAs as well.
If you are good at door knocking, go door knock for annuities!! Not FE...
Just choose a different neighborhood. Not the nicest in town, not the worst, somewhere in the middle with a good amount of people 55+.
MYGA rates are very easy to market and tell people about. And you will sell some FIAs while doing it. Edward Jones reps still door knock to this day for investment clients. It can work.
If you want to buy leads, buy term leads. $15k goes a long way with term leads. And you will not have the chargebacks like you do with FE. Different demographic. Plus you could cross-sell DI to them.
Network. You have a "natural market" with the people/places you normally go. Dont "sell" them, just tell them how you help people, and ask if they are in a position to speak to you about it. Sell them term/wl/gul/di/annuities/etc.
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With 15k in savings either final expense or term life is better for you. I agree with Scagnt however, its unlikely you can sell to referals from that book of business you built in the 1st year. You need cash flow now. On final expense if you had such a high chargeback, its likely you were not closing properly, did not know how to qualify prospects who will pay and maybe wrong IMO and wrong carriers. You should expect 80% charge back at the beginning, and that number can be improved over time. Term life could be better for you if in the future you jump back into annuities. SOme term clients make great annuity prospects. You will also run into annuity sales on FE side if you are in telesales, less likely if you are a walkin person.
- 6,832
Caveat, not an agent.
That lead in question (after the FE Sale) which goes something like, "What rates do you get on your CD's?" doesn't work face to face?
- 4,787
Can't your partner run a search in his tax software to locate clients age 60-80 that have 1099 I taxable interest to offer tax deferral from annuity? Or can't he run those woth 1099 R income to see if they may prefer an annuity to hold their IRA for fixed or index guarantee, etc
X date CDs of the tax clients as the CDs renewing are generally 1 of 2 things: 1. Lower now than when most were bought 7 -14 months ago, or 2. Most banks pay almost 0% on renewing internal CD renewal rates compared to the lure in rates they put on billboards for new money
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- #8
Thank you for the response. This is part of the reason I am trying to get some things accomplished on my own. She only uses Drake software and no CRM and charges 85-100 per return. Her and I had a conversation today about the importance of collecting emails as a way to add value to her clients with a monthly newsletter about taxes, estate planning, or another topics she may want to inform her clients about. Because of that a lot of her clients are low to lower middle income that price point is part of the the reason they hang around. She is good at what she does and has worked hard to build he business over 30 years on referrals alone. I have looked through the software and called Drake and there is no way to sort clients with the version she uses. I don't plan to leave her hanging this up coming tax season but I need to generate more income than we are doing together. My plan is to help her grow and bring on another preparer or 2 so we can utilize the tax side as the entryway to the insurance side. Part of my struggle is getting her onboard with new processes and procedures to make this really take off.
- 25,486
I don't like what these guys call the FE market. I do like SIWL. Table rated Whole Life. Sold to regular bill paying people that may have small <$50k need and some normal ailments.
A lot of my termites fall into that category as they term out. Great reason to collect orphan termites. Xdate
It's a very underrated activity.
I guess it is now called drip marketing. Kind of gives me the cringeys.
IMohsoHO
100% of my marketing is dinner seminars and they absolutely work but you might have to change some things around.
I didn't have a lot of success when I would host things like a social security seminars or a tax planning seminars because I struggled with transitioning to the sale.
However when I changed the seminar to focus directly on the benefit of the annuity...safety, protection from market risk etc I started having success. I cover the downsides of the annuities at the seminars as well.
Like some of the other posts have mentioned the key is consistency. Do one every month no matter what. It is not uncommon to blank two events in a row but write 1.8 mil on the third.
Yes the sale is transactional at first but over time you can layer in additional sales(life,LTC) over time as the develop relationships with the people.
I didn't have a lot of success when I would host things like a social security seminars or a tax planning seminars because I struggled with transitioning to the sale.
However when I changed the seminar to focus directly on the benefit of the annuity...safety, protection from market risk etc I started having success. I cover the downsides of the annuities at the seminars as well.
Like some of the other posts have mentioned the key is consistency. Do one every month no matter what. It is not uncommon to blank two events in a row but write 1.8 mil on the third.
Yes the sale is transactional at first but over time you can layer in additional sales(life,LTC) over time as the develop relationships with the people.
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