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Good morning all.
It's been a while since being in the forums. At the time of my last post 2 1/2 years ago, I was new to insurance and have been spending a lot of time learning more about final expense sales.
Now I've learned a lot and am grateful for all that I have learned. This past July, August, and September. I was able to pump out $12,500 to over 15k in AP off of 15 mail leads a week. I was thinking I think I've gotten my groove. Until...
EFES changed it's lead card and demographics. And since August 16, 2014, here are the stats on the weekly mail leads. Mail leads are usually put in the agent's mailbox every Saturday. I've requested 15 mail leads every week.
8/16 - 2 mail leads
8/23 - 15 mail leads
8/30 - 6 mail leads - Over the weekend, more came in and I received 10 more leads on Monday.
9/6 - 10 mail leads
9/13 - 21 mail leads - These were not my leads. These leads were leads that were left from an agent that left the EFES. I got a discounted price on these.
9/20 - 22 mail leads - Again these were not my leads, but the leads of the agent that left. EFES said they needed to build up my leads in my territory. These were discounted, so I seized the opportunity.
9/27 - 6 mail leads - To supplement these leads, I purchased 4 Excess A leads outside of my territory.
10/6 - 13 mail leads - No leads in my area. These were leads from the same agent that left. These leads came Saturday.
10/15 - 15 mail leads in my territory.
10/18 - 14 mail leads in my territory - 7 of them were from non English speaking prospects
10/25 - 15 mail leads in my territory
11/1 - 11 mail leads on Saturday, 4 more came on Monday when I let EFES know I was short leads.
11/8 - 15 mail leads in my territory
11/13-11/14 - I wanted to go from 15 to 20 leads per week, so I requested 5 tele-leads. However I received 7 tele-leads about 1hr-1.5hrs outside of the territory I requested (I was working in a concentrated area) and they came 2 days late.
11/15 - 7 mail leads
As you can see, in the past 3 months, most of the weeks I have received less than 15 mail leads, and yet I still pulled over $12k/month (I had older leads to still see.). But in October, I made $8K AP.
In October, I've spoken with home office about the new leads and the whole lead process and how they generate mail leads and I was assured that this is temporary. However today I'm short leads. It was also explained to me (which I already knew) that Georgia has a bad rate of return for mail leads (about .1-.4%). However I never hear about the top agents at EFES having a problem with lead flow, even the ones here in Georgia. I'm feeling like if I was a top agent with EFES, I wouldn't have this problem because more mail would be dropped. There has been other issues that have been bothering me (I won't get into them here.), so now I'm wondering if I should move on. Don't get me wrong, EFES has been a great opportunity for me to learn the final expense business. I have learned a lot from their business model. But unfortunately, I don't have anybody else to rely on financially, so I'm not sure if I can hang around until this gets worked out. So now I'm at a crossroad.
Also, I checked with a couple of other IMOs, and their leads cost more than $24/lead (the maximum amount EFES charges). I currently am paying $21-$22 per lead at EFES. Based on my numbers, I could get my lead cost down to $16. However with other IMOs, the cost per lead is about $28 and it is set at this price and they can't guarantee 15-20 leads a week. I also have a protected territory at EFES that I don't think any other IMO can guarantee. There are a lot of final expense agents in Georgia, so I think a protected area is important too, right?
What would you do if you were in my shoes?
It's been a while since being in the forums. At the time of my last post 2 1/2 years ago, I was new to insurance and have been spending a lot of time learning more about final expense sales.
Now I've learned a lot and am grateful for all that I have learned. This past July, August, and September. I was able to pump out $12,500 to over 15k in AP off of 15 mail leads a week. I was thinking I think I've gotten my groove. Until...
EFES changed it's lead card and demographics. And since August 16, 2014, here are the stats on the weekly mail leads. Mail leads are usually put in the agent's mailbox every Saturday. I've requested 15 mail leads every week.
8/16 - 2 mail leads
8/23 - 15 mail leads
8/30 - 6 mail leads - Over the weekend, more came in and I received 10 more leads on Monday.
9/6 - 10 mail leads
9/13 - 21 mail leads - These were not my leads. These leads were leads that were left from an agent that left the EFES. I got a discounted price on these.
9/20 - 22 mail leads - Again these were not my leads, but the leads of the agent that left. EFES said they needed to build up my leads in my territory. These were discounted, so I seized the opportunity.
9/27 - 6 mail leads - To supplement these leads, I purchased 4 Excess A leads outside of my territory.
10/6 - 13 mail leads - No leads in my area. These were leads from the same agent that left. These leads came Saturday.
10/15 - 15 mail leads in my territory.
10/18 - 14 mail leads in my territory - 7 of them were from non English speaking prospects
10/25 - 15 mail leads in my territory
11/1 - 11 mail leads on Saturday, 4 more came on Monday when I let EFES know I was short leads.
11/8 - 15 mail leads in my territory
11/13-11/14 - I wanted to go from 15 to 20 leads per week, so I requested 5 tele-leads. However I received 7 tele-leads about 1hr-1.5hrs outside of the territory I requested (I was working in a concentrated area) and they came 2 days late.
11/15 - 7 mail leads
As you can see, in the past 3 months, most of the weeks I have received less than 15 mail leads, and yet I still pulled over $12k/month (I had older leads to still see.). But in October, I made $8K AP.
In October, I've spoken with home office about the new leads and the whole lead process and how they generate mail leads and I was assured that this is temporary. However today I'm short leads. It was also explained to me (which I already knew) that Georgia has a bad rate of return for mail leads (about .1-.4%). However I never hear about the top agents at EFES having a problem with lead flow, even the ones here in Georgia. I'm feeling like if I was a top agent with EFES, I wouldn't have this problem because more mail would be dropped. There has been other issues that have been bothering me (I won't get into them here.), so now I'm wondering if I should move on. Don't get me wrong, EFES has been a great opportunity for me to learn the final expense business. I have learned a lot from their business model. But unfortunately, I don't have anybody else to rely on financially, so I'm not sure if I can hang around until this gets worked out. So now I'm at a crossroad.
Also, I checked with a couple of other IMOs, and their leads cost more than $24/lead (the maximum amount EFES charges). I currently am paying $21-$22 per lead at EFES. Based on my numbers, I could get my lead cost down to $16. However with other IMOs, the cost per lead is about $28 and it is set at this price and they can't guarantee 15-20 leads a week. I also have a protected territory at EFES that I don't think any other IMO can guarantee. There are a lot of final expense agents in Georgia, so I think a protected area is important too, right?
What would you do if you were in my shoes?