MAN... This is Tough!!!

[fetam]

Do yourself a favor and don't keep your wife in the dark. From all my experiences, this is a bad thing to do. Most women will be more supportive if they know where you are and what to expect if things get bad. Just show her that you are working your ass off. If she can't be ok with that and helping you achieve your goal, then she's not worth having around.

Just my 2.38 cents

 

[redgo]

Do yourself a favor and don't keep your wife in the dark. From all my experiences, this is a bad thing to do. Most women will be more supportive if they know where you are and what to expect if things get bad. Just show her that you are working your ass off. If she can't be ok with that and helping you achieve your goal, then she's not worth having around.

Just my 2.38 cents

My wife knows the reality of starting a scratch agency, and before I started my agency I told her she needed to be on board, otherwise I would not move forward. I just don’t tell her my day to day frustrations, let downs, etc. I don’t want our relationship to suffer due to my ups and downs with starting an agency. Your advice is right on, thanks!

 

[davidp711]

You are doing well if you have 2 policies in your first 3 weeks.. remember this, the marketing you are doing right now typically won't pay off for 3 weeks. My typical close time is 2 calls and maybe 1 appointment in 3 weeks. They want quotes, time to shop, then want to know you'll call them back, then meet them in person, then close. People here so far don't respond to webconferencing, but I am having success driving them to my quote engine to shop for themselves.

1 suggestion. Stop selling people on the idea that you will save them money. Of course you can save them money, you can also cost them more money and provide more benefits, but neither of those is really terribly important so far as I've found. I tried the I can save you x dollars angle for a while, and while it does function as a door opener I find it better almost to just sell the fact that I am local and I can provide the service they wish they got from the agent they have now. I've considered starting out by asking people when the last time they talked to their health insurance agent was. If they have a good relationship with their agent they aren't gonna switch anyway, that's what you should be selling. I have NEVER EVER not even one time told someone when they called me, oh you should call company X and ask so and so about that. I call for them. The personal service is what people are lacking. You are dealing with their life. They want to know they can rely on you. If they see that they can, they will tell EVERYONE they know that they can rely on you. You are not the falling prices at wal-mart.

I've been marketing my ass off for the last month or so. I was feeling disappointed because I only sold 2 policies so far this week and then today I had 5 call me to set up appointments that I had quoted within the last 3 weeks. Should sell 8 policies tomorrow. Referrals are starting to pour in too, I had never gotten any before this month, and so far this month I've gotten 4 that called me. My goal was 100 policies for the year, now I'm thinking 300 is possible.

Never ever stop marketing no matter how you feel the results are.

Also, just remember, I'm nothing special, I'm just honest with people and nice to them and they appreciate that 100 times more than a sales pitch. You want to be sucessful in this business, stop selling people policies. Help them find what they were looking for in the first place, or the next closest thing. Be nice to them and treat them like they are your friend. Make them comfortable.

I really like this approach, I do this myself. I don't try to sell I will save you money to people. I sell I am local and will be there when you need me, and do all the hard work for you making sure your life insurance does what you want it to, protect your family and help you sleep better at night knowing that. Not staying up worrying about it. It is a hard business but you got to stay in it and continue to chip away.

 

[cusaba]

You know... this forum here is so great I can't stop reading and refreshing. I'm new in the business, as new as the person who started this thread. Sometimes I feel like him, frustrated, find my self thinking if this is worth it or not. Yes, people is hard, lazy and most of the time can't see what is so obvious.
I got my license in july last year, got everything I think is needed for the business, website, phone service, 800 number, business cards, quoting engine... and so on. So far... I have only sold 6 policies. I'm doing this part time, I can't afford jumping out of my paid job. That is currently paying for all the expenses of the insurance and my house, my wife works, but it is not enough to cover our regular expenses. I tried netquote and I think I should give them a second chance, I guess I need to understand this business has better results when you get leads in bulk (at least more than one a day). I'm also printing postcards to hand deliver in the malls, markets, etc...also cold calling after 5. I'm using an old list a friend gave me, but most of the people seem to be broke. He got it from one of those discount plans companies...
I'm not afraid of the phone, I think I'm decent, and honest with people, I actually believe they call me spend an hour with me giving them all kinds of details of the piece of @#$% someone sold them and quote like crazy, call their doctors to make sure they take the proposed carrier... they never call or replay email again.
BUT I WON'T GIVE UP!!!!
thank you for reading... I feel relieved.

 

[Labman]

As a newbie I've learned there is a HUGE learning curve to not only learning the products, but perhaps more importantly how to qualify a prospect and the close the prospect. The biggest failure of mine in some regards has not been in asking questions. I tend to do more telling.

I'd almost suggest you put more time into learning sales skills than product. Even if you know the product from head to toe, if you can't close a client, all the product knowledge ain't worth a damn.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

I got my license in july last year, got everything I think is needed for the business, website, phone service, 800 number, business cards, quoting engine... and so on.

You forgot the most important one.

Until you've got a marketing plan to bring you a steady stream of prospective clients, all the rest of it is academic...and useless.

I actually believe they call me spend an hour with me giving them all kinds of details of the piece of @#$% someone sold them and quote like crazy, call their doctors to make sure they take the proposed carrier... or they never call replay email again.

There are scores of "prospects" who will stroke you, use you as their "info source" and generally try to take advantage of you. You better learn how to qualify better!

So it's the prospects fault that you're failing? You're expecting them to call you back or email you to say, "I'll take it"? Much, much too competitive for that to work. It ain't gonna happen. Are you asking for the business - everytime? Guiding them through a process that ends up with an application?

BUT I WON'T GIVE UP!!!!

Great, by all means persevere! Keep one thing in mind though - if you keep doing what you've done, you'll keep getting what you've got.

 

[cusaba]

I think I'm not been constant with marketing, netquote for example, I got leads from them for only one zip code, about 1 lead a day, 30 leads a month... that's nothing according to what I'm reading here so, what did I do? spent a few hundreds in three or four months, wrote 2 apps and considered a terrible thing. result canceled the contract. I know I'm talkative, I can establish a good and nice conversation, I can listen, I can talk, fine, but I'm not leading them to close the deal. I don't have the skills and I'm doing this the hard way. By myself and after business hours. It's tough, really tough, is there a good advise or something you can share about how to guide prospects to close? I know there is no one size fits all, but you might have some sort of "big picture".

 

[ticker_shuffle]

You are doing well if you have 2 policies in your first 3 weeks.. remember this, the marketing you are doing right now typically won't pay off for 3 weeks. My typical close time is 2 calls and maybe 1 appointment in 3 weeks. They want quotes, time to shop, then want to know you'll call them back, then meet them in person, then close. People here so far don't respond to webconferencing, but I am having success driving them to my quote engine to shop for themselves.

1 suggestion. Stop selling people on the idea that you will save them money. Of course you can save them money, you can also cost them more money and provide more benefits, but neither of those is really terribly important so far as I've found. I tried the I can save you x dollars angle for a while, and while it does function as a door opener I find it better almost to just sell the fact that I am local and I can provide the service they wish they got from the agent they have now. I've considered starting out by asking people when the last time they talked to their health insurance agent was. If they have a good relationship with their agent they aren't gonna switch anyway, that's what you should be selling. I have NEVER EVER not even one time told someone when they called me, oh you should call company X and ask so and so about that. I call for them. The personal service is what people are lacking. You are dealing with their life. They want to know they can rely on you. If they see that they can, they will tell EVERYONE they know that they can rely on you. You are not the falling prices at wal-mart.

I've been marketing my ass off for the last month or so. I was feeling disappointed because I only sold 2 policies so far this week and then today I had 5 call me to set up appointments that I had quoted within the last 3 weeks. Should sell 8 policies tomorrow. Referrals are starting to pour in too, I had never gotten any before this month, and so far this month I've gotten 4 that called me. My goal was 100 policies for the year, now I'm thinking 300 is possible.

Never ever stop marketing no matter how you feel the results are.

Also, just remember, I'm nothing special, I'm just honest with people and nice to them and they appreciate that 100 times more than a sales pitch. You want to be sucessful in this business, stop selling people policies. Help them find what they were looking for in the first place, or the next closest thing. Be nice to them and treat them like they are your friend. Make them comfortable.

What kind of coverage is selling? Major Medical? High Deductible? Med supp?

 

[redgo]

What a week!!! Week #3 down, looking forward to week #4! Hopefully all this hard work this week will pay off!

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

I'd almost suggest you put more time into learning sales skills than product. Even if you know the product from head to toe, if you can't close a client, all the product knowledge ain't worth a damn.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Analogous to the guy who knows a hundred different positions to make love in, but doesn't know any girls!