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It seems like there is a new post every day about someone new coming into the health or life industry that wants to sell completely by phone. Personally, I would rather go shop at a department store (my worst nightmare) than call internet leads all day trying to sell life insurance.
For health, I see how the model works. Even though it sounds aweful to me, I get it. If you want to cross sell some life to your health leads, all the better. The key to why I believe it works for the health business: perceived as a necessary product (yes, I know that's not across the board), but most importantly, renewals.
For life, there are virtually no renewals. That seems like a hard way to make a living, always searching for your next sale. I suppose with volume it could work, but it seems like building a local clientele would be much more profitable in the long run. Working internet leads for life coverage, I see many disadvantages:
-you are dealing with price shoppers that are seeing super preferred rates from other agents even though they will never qualify
-good luck cross selling disability or opening up voluntary benefit cases off an internet lead with any consistency.
- I would guess selling the proper death benefit amount when competing with other agents would be much more difficult as you aren't viewed as a professional, rather a vendor. You will therefore be selling lower premiums, not even taking into account fewer permanent sales.
-term conversions would have to be near zero, I highly doubt many phone sale agents are converting much coverage, this is essentially the "renewals" in term insurance.
-getting consitent quality introductions to others would have to be much more difficult as well given you are more of a vendor than viewed as a professional.
Everyone will shout at me, "but you save time not having to drive, you can talk to more people." In the short run, I bet you could make as much money (maybe even more) selling over the phone, but I guarantee any half serious traditional life insurance agent would lap that phone agents sales by a huge margin in years 3+.
My point, besides selling life by phone sounding like a miserable way to make a living to me, I don't think most people inquiring about selling life by phone understand this isn't a panacea in which you sit in your PJ's a make an enormous amount of money. If you have a personality, you become a student of the game, you use a "high touch" approach, this business can be very fun and rewarding (both financially and emotionally).
Anyone that's new and considering phone sales, make sure you at least look at both ways of doing business.
For health, I see how the model works. Even though it sounds aweful to me, I get it. If you want to cross sell some life to your health leads, all the better. The key to why I believe it works for the health business: perceived as a necessary product (yes, I know that's not across the board), but most importantly, renewals.
For life, there are virtually no renewals. That seems like a hard way to make a living, always searching for your next sale. I suppose with volume it could work, but it seems like building a local clientele would be much more profitable in the long run. Working internet leads for life coverage, I see many disadvantages:
-you are dealing with price shoppers that are seeing super preferred rates from other agents even though they will never qualify
-good luck cross selling disability or opening up voluntary benefit cases off an internet lead with any consistency.
- I would guess selling the proper death benefit amount when competing with other agents would be much more difficult as you aren't viewed as a professional, rather a vendor. You will therefore be selling lower premiums, not even taking into account fewer permanent sales.
-term conversions would have to be near zero, I highly doubt many phone sale agents are converting much coverage, this is essentially the "renewals" in term insurance.
-getting consitent quality introductions to others would have to be much more difficult as well given you are more of a vendor than viewed as a professional.
Everyone will shout at me, "but you save time not having to drive, you can talk to more people." In the short run, I bet you could make as much money (maybe even more) selling over the phone, but I guarantee any half serious traditional life insurance agent would lap that phone agents sales by a huge margin in years 3+.
My point, besides selling life by phone sounding like a miserable way to make a living to me, I don't think most people inquiring about selling life by phone understand this isn't a panacea in which you sit in your PJ's a make an enormous amount of money. If you have a personality, you become a student of the game, you use a "high touch" approach, this business can be very fun and rewarding (both financially and emotionally).
Anyone that's new and considering phone sales, make sure you at least look at both ways of doing business.