Let's play a game: Ponzi Scheme... or not?

[Allen Trent]

Lol so are you!

My entire business model is about being different than the dinosaurs. Coming here helps build my resolve, reminding me why others fail and why I will succeed

Commenting takes 10 seconds as you know

For the sake of our industry, I do hope you do find success in your future. If you even find 10% of the success of my past, present & future you will be a rich man.

Try to be positive & help others. I have received dozens of private messages from forum members that tell me that the idea or assistance I suggested on their post helped sell or service a case or better advise a client or beneficiary on their options.

As I have had more financial success in this business than I had ever dreamed, I get more current satisfaction from giving back to others like so many great people did for me over the years.

 

[TheAnnuityCOWBOY]

For the sake of our industry, I do hope you do find success in your future. If you even find 10% of the success of my past, present & future you will be a rich man.

Try to be positive & help others. I have received dozens of private messages from forum members that tell me that the idea or assistance I suggested on their post helped sell or service a case or better advise a client or beneficiary on their options.

As I have had more financial success in this business than I had ever dreamed, I get more current satisfaction from giving back to others like so many great people did for me over the years.

I am certainly being cheeky in the forum but it is with purpose. I also have had many agents reach out to me, and I barely post here. Both new agents looking for a technology forward broker as well as brokers looking to improve their sales system have reached out to me. My message is resonating w those who see this imminent consolidation coming. It is an underdelivered message.

I don't disagree w anything you said. I also do find nuggets of value from this forum, or I wouldn't be here.

I do NOT see value in ra-ra "you're basically a navy seal, just keep calling" type of support. These people all deserve to be out of business, and some asshole needs to point it out. I've volunteered to be that asshole.

Here's the rub, our insurance sales industry is WAY behind in the technology game. The army of sales people model will change. Blasting lead lists with phone calls, texts, etc... will change. The concept of every independent agent having the same localized value proposition will change.

Any agent who doesn't see this coming will be blindsided. This is why I am doing the chicken little routine and pointing out the dinosaurs.

I have no desire to be agreeable, and an insatiable hunger for the disruptive truth.

This industry will consolidate faster than anyone expects rendering all old school business models irrelevant. We will see the rise of more assurance.com like I-Tech billionaires as well as the fall of the low-tech independent agent.

What happens to millionaire agency owners? That part is less clear. I expect it depends on how your front line producers sell, and how well you embrace cutting edge while avoiding bleeding edge technologies. Many books will merge or be bought out. Do your front line agents use modern technology to offer a better experience? Or are they buying leads and blasting them w cheap multi-line dialer systems? Or worse, are they manually dialing one lead at a time? If so they deserve to be out of business.

Riddle me this? With all the changes to TCPA, what happens to this industry when regulations are passed to limit number of contacts a salesperson can make from a leadform? I guarantee this will happen, and its merely one example. The method of calling/texting/emailing 25 times per day until they answer or tell you to *** off... will be no more.

 

[DHK]

We will see the rise of more assurance.com like I-Tech billionaires as well as the fall of the low-tech independent agent.

I'm going to guess that you have less clients than you have fingers and thumbs.

Clients need clarity in communication and, quite often, they don't have organized thinking on how to evaluate our value proposition.

More technology will CONFUSE rather than help clients make informed decisions.

If people understood their own situation and what they wanted... they wouldn't need us in the first place. But they don't understand AND they don't know our products.

They need higher levels of communication, not more technology.

A writing pad, pen, and a skilled agent writes FAR more insurance and annuities than software usually does. There's a couple of exceptions, but they are also on the "simple" side of things and so you're probably not interested in that.

Riddle me this? With all the changes to TCPA, what happens to this industry when regulations are passed to limit number of contacts a salesperson can make from a leadform? I guarantee this will happen, and its merely one example. The method of calling/texting/emailing 25 times per day until they answer or tell you to *** off... will be no more.

LOL! Let them die off.

But the solution isn't about how they are contacting the lead or how the lead was generated.

The solution to that problem is focusing on the problems you help people solve and work with people who agree that they want to explore the problem and determine the solutions for themselves.

And that takes more communication skills not just 'pinging' your list all the time.

If you haven't read this, you really need to:
Amazon product ASIN 1591844355

 

[TheAnnuityCOWBOY]

Ofc, your message and communication is of upmost importance. Technology can not establish your message. Do we need to state such obvious facts though?

Technology IS how you scale your message. are planning to stand on a soapbox and yell at townsquare? Probably not.

I have thousands of clients. I ran close to 1500 set appointments in the last calendar year.

The biggest issues that my clients communicate to me are:

#1) they HATE the phone calls. They are scared to put their info into a contact form because the phonecalls never stop. This must change as companies like assurance continue to push calling limits. I suggest you try this: Create a new Google email and Google voice number. Put that info into assurance.com and see how many calls/texts/emails you get. Its gross and needs to stop.

#2) agents regularly sell products that pay best rather than what is best for a client. I recall a recent article wherein the author called dozens of health insurance agents and told them he had pre-ex. Something like 1/3 of those agents still tried to push short term medical which doesn't cover pre-ex on them. I hear this story from prospects multiple times per day.

#3) complexity leading to poor decision making is a distant 3rd, but at #3 is still important.

#4) lack of knowledge from the agent. The easiest example is medsupps, wherein a simple value proposition is to identify price increases and rewrite clients with a better option.

Technology properly applied to establish the best customer experience is the answer to all of the above. My team is diligently working towards these goals.

By the time the general insurance agent public understand what we are doing it will be too late. I will take all the clients and all the monies

 

[DHK]

Ofc, your message and communication is of upmost importance. Technology can not establish your message. Do we need to state such obvious facts though?

I hate to say it, but yeah, we do.

12 years ago, I was with an agency that used a given software program. The purpose was to PROVE that whole life insurance was a good idea for the prospect. Of course, with that kind of mentality, the idea was to get them to finally 'admit' defeat and just buy what we're telling them to buy.

Ugh.

#1) they HATE the phone calls. They are scared to put their info into a contact form because the phonecalls never stop.

I agree that the pestering needs to stop. Unless there's new information or new education, it's just seen as "when are you going to buy?"

I now have an ActiveCampaign.com account that I'll be using to 'drip' on my open cases. I have 127 blog articles that aren't doing much for me, so I've put 52 of them into a weekly drip campaign.

#2) agents regularly sell products that pay best rather than what is best for a client.

Obviously not in all cases, but yes, many times.

#3) complexity leading to poor decision making is a distant 3rd, but at #3 is still important.

Yes. The confused mind will not buy. If they do, they'll rescind and create a chargeback.

#4) lack of knowledge from the agent. The easiest example is medsupps, wherein a simple value proposition is to identify price increases and rewrite clients with a better option.

I don't know anything about med supps, but I can believe that to be the case. In fact, that was how the late Frank Stastny designed his custom CRM (Your Insurance Office) all around various company's rate increases, etc., so he can identify who had those plans and move them.


I know we are often "at odds" with each other... but I believe in and admire your objectives and wish you all the success you can possibly handle to do this!