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I actually think the flaw is that those who sell leads always make something at a minimum, even if it is a break even and the agents and those who buy them stand a much better chance of loss. Just saying.
I actually think the flaw is that those who sell leads always make something at a minimum, even if it is a break even and the agents and those who buy them stand a much better chance of loss. Just saying.
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I actually think the flaw is that those who sell leads always make something at a minimum, even if it is a break even and the agents and those who buy them stand a much better chance of loss. Just saying.
Ben, I respect you and I see your point, but that's BS and I'll tell you why:
Agents are more than willing to let the telemarketers share in the risk, but they're not willing to give up commission on the upside. Insurance agents want the telemarketer to accept all of the downside risk without giving them upside potential. Agents all the time say that finding the customer is half the work (or more), but they'd never dream of paying a telemarketing company half their commission. If agents want a telemarketing company to absorb the downside risk, there has to be the upside potential. To use an example:
A gentleman came on here recently complaining about a certain telemarketing company and I'm not interested in rehashing his arguments here, but his contention was that he should only have to pay for qualified leads when he was paying less than $20/ telemarketed lead. Whatever agreement he and the company had is irrelevant to this discussion, but the point is that if an agent wants to only pay for quality leads or want to share risk, they're going to have to pay a high premium for those leads and agents, at least in my experience, would never consider paying close to half their commissions for leads. Would you pay 50% of the commission on a deal for telemarketed life leads? Methinks not. If so, PM me and let's make some money together (I'm open to discussing that offer with most life agents).
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Josh I think you would find some agents who are willing to share on the upside but not 50%. Maybe 50% if all the business stuck and there wasn't any service work. However I think agents willing to do this aren't your top producing agents. I'm not saying these agents would suck but they sure wouldn't be top producers. No top producer is gonna give up 50%. None that I know of anyway.
I just feel it is flawed for everyone. Always gonna be finger pointing. The whole lead buying process to me is very similar to going to Vegas. You put your money in the machines and pull the handle. Sometimes you have better luck on different tables or games and it doesn't hurt to know what you are doing for an advantage over the guy who knows nothing about the games he is playing.
At best it is a little better than a crapshoot. You might wind up with just a name and a phone number or the lead provider might have the best lead there is with an agent who could screw up a wet dream.
I just feel it is flawed for everyone. Always gonna be finger pointing. The whole lead buying process to me is very similar to going to Vegas. You put your money in the machines and pull the handle. Sometimes you have better luck on different tables or games and it doesn't hurt to know what you are doing for an advantage over the guy who knows nothing about the games he is playing.
At best it is a little better than a crapshoot. You might wind up with just a name and a phone number or the lead provider might have the best lead there is with an agent who could screw up a wet dream.
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Most decent producers are going to want to stick with what they're doing. Even giving up 25% is something agents wouldn't want to do and that's fine, but I don't think it's fair to cry foul on the lead generators that expect to get paid regardless of what sales are made when there is no upside for them and (as you so clearly illustrated), there is no guarantee of the agents ability to sell anything.
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I am associated with an agency for annuities mainly as that is their main business. Anyway, they have a program whereby the agent pays 50% of all commissions from business generated for leads from the telemarketers. At one time there were several agents on that program but last I knew the telemarketers screwed the pooch by saying some things that just weren't true and the group of prospects reported it to a third party administrator and it is currently on hold. I hadn't signed up for it yet as it wasn't available in my county. To be clear though, it was a simple mistake made by both the agency and the telemarketers soon to be resolved hopefully.
You had two choices though. Either pay per appointment or 50% of compensation. Once on the program their was no switching allowed. You pick one method or the other. If you remember, you and I talked about this a year ago or so. Your problem was agents wanting to switch after receiving so much money in commissions. Well this agency solved that problem by making it a one time choice. Buy them or split them.
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The other part of that problem is it's with annuities which are tougher to market for; generating life insurance leads is tough, but it's easier.
I don't think that the problems is solved by saying pick one and stick with it. The other thing is that in the situation you're describing it's an agency program which is a lot different than an indy picking a lead vendor. If an indy does well on a telemarketed lead program where they were giving away 50% of the commission, after they cut a few checks they're going to think it's a bright idea to just take the money and hire their own telemarketers and start from square one with them. There are just too many ways for a deal like that to go sideways so agents are stuck paying for leads that are anywhere from decent to horrible and there is no partnership. The exception to that being in situations where agents are under an agency and the agency is running a lead program. A few years ago I tried selling leads to agents and got the hell out of that business for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the belief that most agents had that for $25/appointment they should be closing 50% of them and they wanted refunds for all sorts of reasons. I took the exact same telemarketers and script and put them on a split program and the agent working them under the split agreement managed to close 1 in 4 writing a total of over $7k in premium in one week. If it was a pay per lead situation, I'm positive he would have demanded refunds for anything not meeting what he thought a lead should be, but the moral of the story is that as much as agents want to complain about lead vendors, agents are far from the ideal client.
I don't think that the problems is solved by saying pick one and stick with it. The other thing is that in the situation you're describing it's an agency program which is a lot different than an indy picking a lead vendor. If an indy does well on a telemarketed lead program where they were giving away 50% of the commission, after they cut a few checks they're going to think it's a bright idea to just take the money and hire their own telemarketers and start from square one with them. There are just too many ways for a deal like that to go sideways so agents are stuck paying for leads that are anywhere from decent to horrible and there is no partnership. The exception to that being in situations where agents are under an agency and the agency is running a lead program. A few years ago I tried selling leads to agents and got the hell out of that business for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the belief that most agents had that for $25/appointment they should be closing 50% of them and they wanted refunds for all sorts of reasons. I took the exact same telemarketers and script and put them on a split program and the agent working them under the split agreement managed to close 1 in 4 writing a total of over $7k in premium in one week. If it was a pay per lead situation, I'm positive he would have demanded refunds for anything not meeting what he thought a lead should be, but the moral of the story is that as much as agents want to complain about lead vendors, agents are far from the ideal client.
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I have always wonders why a telemarketer that is great at setting appointments doesn't just get licensed and sell the crap out of them. They are just doing the dirty work and only making a fraction of what they could be.
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If the leads were really so great, they would become a call center and get their insurance lic and make all the money.
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That is the progression of things. So all the good lead vendors say "screw this, I'm going to go make some real money" and then agents wonder why there aren't any good telemarketed lead vendors. If agents want quality telemarketed leads, they're going to have to pay a fair price for them, and $15-$30/lead is nowhere near fair for the lead company. If agents want to start paying $150-$300 for a lead that is basically a guaranteed sale, they would be offering a fair value proposition for the lead vendor.
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$150-$300? That is comical. Lol. $300 is more than I make on most sales.
