Final Expense Telesales?

[bigdog121468]

hey guys, just recently got my life license in ma. all the final expense ads out there kind of pushed me in that direction. years various sales jobs, just looked to be something that would be around for a wile. anyway, recently ive started seeing ads for telesales.
ive been researching hours on end for weeks trying to find the best fit for myself, i must have looked into at least a hundred companies if not more. the telesales really appeals to me as thats where my majority of my experience comes from. (not ins. industries).
theyre seems to be a never ending supply of knowledgeable experienced and willing to help members in this forum, so basically im asking if anyone has done or know anything about this side of the biz?
one thing i keep seeing is that charge backs are more frequents for one reson or another.
id love to find a good company to do this with as thats my comfort zone, but again, theyre doesnt seem to be as many as the typical final expense programs out there, so there must be a reson for that unless its that new it just hasnt taken off yet.
thanks to anyone reading or responding to my post. any advice would be greatly appreciated. god bless

 

[HoosierLife]

Please edit this post. Use capitalization and paragraphs.

It's hard to read man. Honestly, I tried to get through it twice and gave up

 

[bboman23]

Look for Thad.Sipple on the forum. He does tele sales.

 

[MarkForte]

Look for Thad.Sipple on the forum. He does tele sales.

I work with folks that do Telesales and Face to Face. By far the industry is a F2F business model. That said; Call centers that focus on Telesales can generate a tremendous amount of Annual premium and keep controls in place.

I worked insurance sales for about 12 years and only sold over the phone. The biggest hurdle you will face is your cost of sale. How many prospects you have to speak with until you get a sale. If you are a good closer over the phone you have a much bigger reach than an agent that is working a few counties.

Charge backs become a problem when your average monthly premium gets to high. If it hurts your client each month to pay the premium that client may fall off the books.

I believe the learning curve is more difficult over the phone. My two cents would say to you that you should find a good mentor (a handfull of good IMO's on the forum, Todd King,Newby,and others.) Learn the business from an independent and you will save yourself a lot of time and energy.

Face to Face would be my call to start.
Good luck

 

[PA Bill]

The man who trained me in FE sells for Senior Life. SL has a dedicated phone sales operation and this is where he started. He is their top agent now doing it the traditional way, but struggled selling over the phone. This guy can talk the bark off of a tree. But then again, by his own admission, he is not a "phone guy".
Selling FE the traditional way is difficult as is. Doing it over the phone, especially being brand new, takes the challenge to another level. Hope you have a lot of money for leads! Not much room for error.
You state you have extensive phone experience. How much of it constitutes one-call closing on the phone? Much different ballgame than dialing for appointments. I think you would be much better served by going into the field first and really learning this business.
Besides, being in the field opens us up to so many opportunities. The weather is warming up. If you are in a urban environment, people sit on their porches. You can prospect, and will sell some of these if you try.
Some industries, like recruiting and being a stock broker, naturally lend themselves to phone sales. FE ain't one of 'em, imho. This is why so few agents can pull it off, and so few companies even entertain the notion. Whether you can, only you know. But it most likely will require an expensive trial and error process. Be careful.

 

[theinsuranceman]

hey guys, just recently got my life license in ma. all the final expense ads out there kind of pushed me in that direction. years various sales jobs, just looked to be something that would be around for a wile. anyway, recently ive started seeing ads for telesales.
ive been researching hours on end for weeks trying to find the best fit for myself, i must have looked into at least a hundred companies if not more. the telesales really appeals to me as thats where my majority of my experience comes from. (not ins. industries).
theyre seems to be a never ending supply of knowledgeable experienced and willing to help members in this forum, so basically im asking if anyone has done or know anything about this side of the biz?
one thing i keep seeing is that charge backs are more frequents for one reson or another.
id love to find a good company to do this with as thats my comfort zone, but again, theyre doesnt seem to be as many as the typical final expense programs out there, so there must be a reson for that unless its that new it just hasnt taken off yet.
thanks to anyone reading or responding to my post. any advice would be greatly appreciated. god bless

I have 10 straight years experience of selling FE over the phone very successfully. Before that 6 years selling face 2 face very successfully. Here's some insight on FE tele-sales:

_Closing % will be about 10-15% less than face 2 face.

_You can make many more presentations via tele-sales than u can in the field which will compensate for the lower closing %. 6 sales/20 leads via face 2 face is less profit than 8 sales/40 leads via tele-sales.

_Charge-backs no more problem for tele-sales than face 2 face sales as long as you know what to do for about 10 min. after the sale is made.

_Longer warm-up needed for tele-sales than face 2 face sales.

_Tele-sales does not give you the juicy tax write off of 55+ cents per mile for personal car used for biz purposes. An office you pay rent on makes up for it.

_When it gets dark at 5pm in the winter face 2 face agents usually quit for the day. With tele-sales you can keep dialing till 9PM in the prospect's time zone.

_You can stir up more activity face 2 face, talking to neighbors, talking to your lunch waitress, etc.

_DM leads not good for tele-sales unless they are hot off the press. TV leads much better for tele-sales.

_Face 2 face usually more fun, hard to sit behind a desk all day.

_With tele-sales you'll get "no's" quicker but you'll also get "yesses" quicker. You have to keep focused or it'll mess with your attitude.

_Brand new agents, with good training, do just fine with tele-sales. Experienced agents don't usually like tele-sales because we hate to sit still for long periods of time.

_As quoted above Sr Life has tele-sales down pretty much to a science and is light years ahead of of other FE tele-sales companies. They were the 1st FE company to start testing FE tele-sales back around 2001. I believe Ron (SL Pres.) said "if Geico can sell car insurance over the phone why can't we sell FE over the phone?"

_Sr Life is now rolling out a fantastic new program: When a prospect sees the TV commercial and calls the toll free number on their TV screen the call is automatically routed directly to an agent's phone. A lead only 30 seconds old! Can't get any fresher than that! Plus there is no wasted time, like it has been for years, dialing a prospect multiple times before you reach them on the phone. This will eliminate all the wasted time each week dialing numbers when no one is home, etc.

_My top 2 agents are field agents, each writes about $4k-$6k apiece
each week. They both like fields sales much better. Interesting note on these 2 agents: Mike prefers DM leads and hates TV leads. Tanya prefers TV leads and hated DM leads...go figure.

3 years ago I was the only person up here touting the benefits of FE tele-sales and a lot of people up here were howling how it was a losing proposition (even though they had never tried tele-sales and had zero experience with it). Now we see Thad and Moon and Todd and others are becoming involved with this business model.

Hope this info helps you and others.

 

[MarkForte]

Really good response and overview.

 

[Thad.Sipple]

I agree good response, I have been at it for 3.5 years also and it's good,bad, and indifferent. Mostly good.

 

[WinoBlues]

I agree good level response. I do the majority of my business on the phone. While not solely FE, a good portion is. I disagree about being able to sell via phone with no outside sales insurance experience. But that disagreement is based on thoughts only since my experience was F2F first. I do not beleive I have the chops to have done it with out F2F experience. No first hand knowladge.

This can be a good thread, hope it does not go the way that all these telesale threads go.

 

[Thad.Sipple]

I agree good level response. I do the majority of my business on the phone. While not solely FE, a good portion is. I disagree about being able to sell via phone with no outside sales insurance experience. But that disagreement is based on thoughts only since my experience was F2F first. I do not beleive I have the chops to have done it with out F2F experience. No first hand knowladge. This can be a good thread, hope it does not go the way that all these telesale threads go.

I no longer hire (for my office) insurance agents, I only hire people with some kind of phone experience or someone who has none (if there willing to learn) in my experience these people do way better than insurance agents, but I have a 42 page training manual, call recordings and videos for training. The phone script alone is 4 full pages long.

Experienced insurance people, car sales, real estate peeps, never last and generally fail, in my xperience. They are usually set in there ways, can't work on a phone for 6.5 hours per day, and don't understand that F2F is not the same sale as phone sales, phone sales is harder in the sense you have to ask the same question 4 different times in four different fashions and you better get the same answer.

I do think that if a F2F agent wanted to transition to telesales they could do it well very well only if they understand the difference and are willing to work for 6 + hours per day, if so they could write 6 to 10 applications per week, on about 50 leads per week, give or take.