I just finished my first week with Colonial. I spoke to 70 businesses and have 10 Decision Maker appointments for this coming week. What is the average would you say? I also found out the AFLAC is in just about every business so far, which I anticipated, and that is why I went with Colonial, to gradually chip away at AFLAC in our area.
I had 4 Decision Maker meetings this week, and I only worked Wednesday of last week and spoke with 30 people businesses.
Any advice from experienced agents will be appreciated.
I just finished my first week with Colonial. I spoke to 70 businesses and have 10 Decision Maker appointments for this coming week. What is the average would you say? I also found out the AFLAC is in just about every business so far, which I anticipated, and that is why I went with Colonial, to gradually chip away at AFLAC in our area.
I had 4 Decision Maker meetings this week, and I only worked Wednesday of last week and spoke with 30 people businesses.
Any advice from experienced agents will be appreciated.
Sounds like you had plenty of activity. That is the secret. Are you doing it alone or do you have an experienced agent with you? I would try to schedule my decision maker appointments with a mentor.
Sounds like you had plenty of activity. That is the secret. Are you doing it alone or do you have an experienced agent with you? I would try to schedule my decision maker appointments with a mentor.
I am doing the decision maker meetings with a manager, but I am doing my approaches on my own. I rode with a manager for a couple of days but I think he saw that I could do that myself.
I am scheduled for Colonial College at the end of the month.
I was in auto sales for about 20 years so I have shaken 1000's of hands.
Don't forget to partner with insurance brokers as well, if you can that is. That way you can hit up more prospective clients in one swoop.
This is very good advice... and Colonial has some methods for you to do that. They claim that well over half the business they write is in conjunction with brokers. Of course, the problem is that you will have to split your commission with them about 50-50. It's a great deal for the broker as he or she does not have to do anything beyond make a phone call introducing you.
It's not a good deal for you on small group. But if you can land a 50 to 100 life group that belongs to a broker, you can do OK. You will still work your tail off for 50%... but it's 50% you would not have gotten otherwise.
"I spoke to 70 businesses and have 10 Decision Maker appointments for this coming week"
Shoot, I need to take advice from you.
If were to give you any advice on selling the product it would be to communicate that you are going to do what is best for the employee's. Don't sell them 10 different policies but narrow it down.
If your dealing with larger companies remember its going to cost them money in time to put the plans in place. So if that comes up have a reason why its worth the companies time to switch if they are already with the duck.
Congratulations...looks like you are off to a great start.
Were your 70 approaches by phone or in-person?
In person.. I don't know if I would do as well on the phone. I actually only ended up with 7 decision maker meetings. Today 3 of the 10 postponed until next week.
In person.. I don't know if I would do as well on the phone. I actually only ended up with 7 decision maker meetings. Today 3 of the 10 postponed until next week.
Don't sweet it. With spring break coming up usually benefits come to a stand still. All the decision makers are more worried about getting out of town than voluntary products.
Va Dwayne, How's it going w/ Colonial I'm seriously considering an offer from them.
I would seriously suggest you not take Colonial up on whatever offer you might get. Colonial has a "family" and "team" culture in most districts. You are going to have to get along with agents with varying viewpoints, cultures, political preferences, etc. You are going to be the "newbie" and will have to take direction as opposed to giving it.
From your first post here, which beat the crap out of me, I can see that you probably don't have the "personality type" to be successful with Colonial. You are highly aggressive and you don't seem to show any signs that you are a team player. When you work on large national accounts with Colonial the the whole district team will be involved, and someone with your aggressive attitude would not be tolerated... because you could kill an account.
In worksite selling you often have to deal with the prospect's core-benefit broker as well as Colonial enrollers (who get about 15% of the commission) and co-ordinators (who get about 4% of the commission). Some of these folks are going to be liberals, some moderates, and some... who knows what. If you take a typical Rush Limbaugh tone with them (like you did with me), none of them will want to work with you, especially the broker and his/her staff.
Being aggressive and mono-directed will work well for you as an independent producer because that's really a single-player sport like tennis or boxing. Lots of executives will identify with your confrontational style as they are also type-A personalities. (You can't always be Mr. Nice Guy and keep the company running at the same time.)
I don't think you will be happy with Colonial (nor they with you) but perhaps you're a good actor and will be able to play well with the other children... at least better than you played with me a few days ago.
I have been doing a lot of product comparison with Colonial and Aflac. Colonial is not cheaper as the sales people preach.
They do have richer benefits but in these kind of economic conditions for voluntary product you want to sell the best plan for the best price.
I have not been able to switch any clients from Aflac to Colonial.
Some of the problem is price, but not much of it. Most companies don't know the price differences between Aflac and Colonial... and don't much care.
I argued with Colonial (at the highest levels) for over two years that they had to spend some money on consumer marketing because we agents were being killed in the field by the duck.
Many years ago Colonial had a bear and I told them to bring it back in a series of commercials where the bear eats the duck. Or maybe do a series of "I'm an Aflac duck, I'm a Colonial bear" spots. But my arguments were never heard. Instead they changed their logo (to 'green/blue circles') and their slogan... like that was going to somehow counteract $50m a year of Aflac's very excellent advertising.
Colonial executives seemed to be happy with the performance of the company and saw no reason to change. I don't know how the company is doing now but I spoke to a Colonial agent a couple of weeks ago who told me they are being killed on re-works (yearly reviews) in that participation is way down from the normal 55% of the average company's employees.
Until wages rise to meet the increased costs of food and gas and.... insurance (especially P&C) I don't see an up-tick in the worksite sector. YMMV.
Since you have done your homework. Where do I find information on colonial's independent broker channel Al?
They used to have all this stuff on their website but no longer. You now have to contact a district sales manager. There used to be a commission structure for brokers but I forget what it was. Most often, if you opened one of your groups to a Colonial agent you could negotiate a split which was often half the opening agents commission. (Opening agents used to get around 20% on average, enrollers got a flat 15% and co-ordinators got 4%... often one person did all three jobs on a small group.) Most brokers looked at worksite as "found money" in that they didn't have to work hard for it.
A bit different. Aflac has a churn-and-burn culture. They hire loads of agents with the knowledge that most will fail... but they will usually fail after writing one or two groups After they wash-out the commissions on those groups go to the managers and the up-line. It is very lucrative for them.
Colonial really tries to hire for the long-haul and does a much better job of interviewing and "educating" their prospective agents. Of course, the wash-out rate is high as well, but since Colonial is harder to sell than Aflac because of name recognition, fewer agents leave a "legacy" to the upline.
Colonial has terrific training. I don't know about Aflac. Also, Colonial tries to foster a team environment with lots of hands-on mentoring... while I believe that Aflac sees each agent as a lone-ranger... in a sink-or-swim environment.
If you are "good" (and somewhat experienced) and want to make money, go with Aflac as it is easier to pitch than the unknown Colonial. But if you are a newbie, you will learn more from Colonial and maybe make a few dollars after you learn the biz.
I don't do worksite anymore because in my opinion (the only one that counts in this case!) the commission structure is too low vis-à-vis the length of the sales cycle and the effort required. YMMV.
Va Dwayne, How's it going w/ Colonial I'm seriously considering an offer from them.
This is what I will say about Colonial. It is a great company with a great reputation.I enrolled 4 new businesses in my first couple of months,and all of them were a pain in the butt.Every one took several days of running back and forth for very little money, well,adequate money but the pay per hour worked stunk.I also found that there are better ways to spend my day rather than spending 8 hours a day in my car.I have made more money prospecting at home,selling my own products.
Will I continue with Colonial? Probably, but it won't be my main focus and I will spend my time more wisely,and more efficiently.I am going to prospect other ways, do decison maker meetings,open the account which takes very little time,let somebody else do the enrolling and chasing down employees, I will take my 25%, and while the enroller is enrolling for 15%, I will be selling Final Expense at 110%.I am working on some prospecting ideas now to see if they will work.I have found out that calling a business, asking the receptionist who the decision maker is, and then calling them the next day,is just as effective as riding around collecting business cards.
First Week with Colonial
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