Since the economy is so HORRID, I am having a hard time making new sales, it seems like NOBODY want's to be prospected for Anything now.
Layoff's are happening here daily, so now when I get a term form from a group, I call the employee and attempt to sell them an individual health policy, roll over 401 K's etc, and I have found the terminated employees take comfort knowing that someone is there to advise them on the issues. ( this is something I never had TIME for before in a good economy, nor did I ever want to sell individual policies) However it is working well and I keep on writing business, which is better than nothing. LOL
Do you guys have any creative idea's for this economy? Has your practice had to make any changes?
I am doing the same thing with employee's that are terminated.
I went back to cold calling. I have not had to do that in the last 4 years. I just decided to go back to the basics.
What I do is call for a contact name and then mail out some info on my agency. Then follow up with them to see if they are satisfied with their current health plan. From my mailings and call back I am generating about 7% interest. Maybe another 5% for call backs at their renewal time. I just started doing this again last month. So I dont have a closing rate yet. YET! Most of the groups that are interested are under 20 lives. I have one call back next year on a group of 64 lives. Right now I am doing 80 mailings a week.
Not very creative but I could not come up with any other ideas.
:( I'm cold calling to, I used to teach agents how to cold call years ago, now doing it again and it is HORRID!! But your right it's back to basics.
What are you cold calling from? I am trying to grow my X date( renewal date list) and have been using chamber lists, the phone book (bla) and the states work comp renewal list. Any one aware of that? Here in Florida you can go to the state and pull up renewal dates for Work Comp and General Liability, so I assume while they are shopping insurance might as well quote group to.
I will go door to door in the morning, haven't done that in 5 years.
Last edited by Executive Benefits : 10-08-2008 at 02:56 PM.
For me, it's also just the basics: B2B and telemarketing. The key to group sales is a large X-date list. Check out your library for a Refernce USA database, most libraries subscripe and you can access the database for free. Otherwise, go leads for $10 per month isn't a bad way to go.
ABC, are you calling without any sort of contact name? That's a difficult road when telemarketing, although I do it all the time for B2B. There are cheap list sources all over to have a contact name like the two mentioned above. Also, have you tried the mail vs. no-mail approach. I have tested out the results mailing something first followed by a phone call and just a straight phone call. The results were identical...I no longer mail anything.
For me, it's also just the basics: B2B and telemarketing. The key to group sales is a large X-date list. Check out your library for a Refernce USA database, most libraries subscripe and you can access the database for free. Otherwise, go leads for $10 per month isn't a bad way to go.
ABC, are you calling without any sort of contact name? That's a difficult road when telemarketing, although I do it all the time for B2B. There are cheap list sources all over to have a contact name like the two mentioned above. Also, have you tried the mail vs. no-mail approach. I have tested out the results mailing something first followed by a phone call and just a straight phone call. The results were identical...I no longer mail anything.
What was your sample size for both groups? Did you also try to fax information.
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[COLOR=#000066]"Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand." Confucius
I mailed out 50 per day for 3 months before I got sick of stuffing envelopes and paying for postage. So about 2000 letters. I called on the same sized market, same product for the next 3 months and the results were identical. One unsolicited call back out of 2000.
I didn't try faxing the info, I believe it's illegal to fax without permission. I will agree that my letter probably sucked and didn't have a strong call to action, however, if you are just sending a letter to warm up a call, save your money. If it's a component of a full fledged marketing campaign, that may be a different story.
Whenever I find a company closing I contact their HR dept and see if I can set up a table to do individual quotes. 2 years ago at a lumber-mill closing I wrote 100k in AV in 3 days.
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"The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right."
~ Mark Twain
I mailed out 50 per day for 3 months before I got sick of stuffing envelopes and paying for postage. So about 2000 letters. I called on the same sized market, same product for the next 3 months and the results were identical. One unsolicited call back out of 2000.
I didn't try faxing the info, I believe it's illegal to fax without permission. I will agree that my letter probably sucked and didn't have a strong call to action, however, if you are just sending a letter to warm up a call, save your money. If it's a component of a full fledged marketing campaign, that may be a different story.
Gotcha. I had it turned around. I thought you mailed things after you spoke with them and then followed up.
:( I'm cold calling to, I used to teach agents how to cold call years ago, now doing it again and it is HORRID!! But your right it's back to basics.
What are you cold calling from? I am trying to grow my X date( renewal date list) and have been using chamber lists, the phone book (bla) and the states work comp renewal list. Any one aware of that? Here in Florida you can go to the state and pull up renewal dates for Work Comp and General Liability, so I assume while they are shopping insurance might as well quote group to.
I will go door to door in the morning, haven't done that in 5 years.
I am basically googleing SIC codes in my city. I get about 10 pages and start calling. Of the 10 pages I might get 30 contacts.
The Chamber of Commerce in Indianapolis has a 5% discount with Anthem. I have worked that list in the past but everyone is already with Anthem and thats why they join is to get the 5% discount off of health premium.
I am going door to door next week.
At this point I know I am going to have to work 4 times as hard as I have been to generate business. Most of my new sales have come from new business that have recently been established in the last 3 years. Well these group are not buying right now so now it time to go after more established business.
I don't know about the rest of you guys writing employee benefits but 2008 has been my worst year for production.
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Originally Posted by Delta76
ABC, are you calling without any sort of contact name? That's a difficult road when telemarketing, although I do it all the time for B2B. There are cheap list sources all over to have a contact name like the two mentioned above. Also, have you tried the mail vs. no-mail approach. I have tested out the results mailing something first followed by a phone call and just a straight phone call. The results were identical...I no longer mail anything.
I am calling to get the contact name that handles the group health insurance. Then I send them my info which is nice and glossy and talks about what we can do for them.
Then I call and try to speak to the contact person. I would say 60% of the time the contact will not speak with me.
I mail out the old school way to give my agency some authenticity. I will say the contacts that do talk to me have read the info I sent.
Maybe there is a better way?
Last edited by ABC : 10-10-2008 at 10:43 AM.
Reason: Automerged Doublepost
1st I call and get the contact name and record that, ( I rarley get to the decision maker on this call)
2nd I record a "follow up list" in Excell
3rd when I call back and ask for the contact, I rarley leave my company name and act like I am SUPPOSED to be calling. If I get voice mail I'll leave a message like " Hey _____ it's Heather! do me a favor and call me on my cell__________. I'll be in and out of the office this week and I would love to talk to you." ..... This leaves them confused, they don't know who I am, assume they already know me and sometimes call back.
4th call they have already heard my voice, can't fuigure out who I am and when I get to talking to them, they are being nice while trying to fuigure it out! So I nicley say " I would love the opportunity to provide you with a quote on your group health, see If I can save you some money this year" then they say yes or no and if it's no they give me the renewal date and I tell them I will be calling closer to their renewal.
WORKS LIKE A CHARM!
Last edited by Executive Benefits : 10-10-2008 at 03:34 PM.
I am basically googleing SIC codes in my city. I get about 10 pages and start calling. Of the 10 pages I might get 30 contacts....I am going door to door next week.
Here is where my ignorance on such things comes to play.
How does Googleing an SIC code in Whittier for example, help with my D2D/B2B contacting?
I'm new at doing this prospecting, I've been doing business parks/strip malls, I've got two excellent prospects off of the 30 or so businesses that I have, as well as over a dozen or so who are going to be doing some renewal in the spring, so long term it look hopeful.
But I digress.
I'm not really in a position, nor am I confident enough to trust an outside company for leads, so I am looking for ways to get things in gear.
How does an SIC code help my prospecting?
I am calling to get the contact name that handles the group health insurance. Then I send them my info which is nice and glossy and talks about what we can do for them.
Then I call and try to speak to the contact person. I would say 60% of the time the contact will not speak with me.
I mail out the old school way to give my agency some authenticity. I will say the contacts that do talk to me have read the info I sent.
Maybe there is a better way?
I don't think there is, other than perhaps getting their email address and contacting them as well, I'd suggest you tell them ahead of time that you're going to be sending something to them, it should cut down the deleted messages.
I'd attach a PDF of the brouchure etc., as well.
What I have done is to send a quick note to those that have taken the time to speak with me, thanking them for their time, and confirming what I can do to help them. I also mention a time frame when I will contact them again.
I hope this doesn't go too far off topic, but I leave them with a single sheet flyer about what I'm offering to help with, and I leave space on the bottom, a form for them to fill out and fax back to me. I've not had any replies yet, I've only been at this for a week, but hopefully something will turn out, you can only throw so much pasta against the wall, something's bound to stick!
There is an easier way to get a list and have a contact name when you call. Call your library and ask if they have a subscription to Reference USA. Then ask if you can access it remotely from your home computer. You can sort by industry, zip code, county, # of employees, ect to target the types of businesses you want to call on.
Most libraries have it, but if they don't, I would get a subscription to GoLeads.com for about $10 a month to get the same information. It's much easier and more effective to call with a name, even if it does end up being the wrong name once in a while.
Creative Marketing Ideas
So I nicley say " I would love the opportunity to provide you with a quote on your group health, see If I can save you some money this year" then they say yes or no and if it's no they give me the renewal date and I tell them I will be calling closer to their renewal. 
Re: Creative Marketing Idea's?
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