Insurance Agent Forum

[warrenins]

Raymond I have been selling group insurance in Ga for 14 years. If I'm understanding you correctly your lead generation program has a lot of merit. I think agents all over the country probably face the same dilema. Where and how do I get good leads. I can tell you there are still lots of group health agents in the state of Ga that still go door to door and leads are important. Most business owners expect you to come and see them. We are still a very agent driven market. Having said that, if you can bring legitimate leads to the table and convince agents to give it a try you might have a winning formula.
You mentioned you want to go national. Just be sure to get a feel for the market that you operate in. Insurance in Georgia is totally different than insurance in Florida. For example, FL has guarantee issue on individual and group, GA does not have guarantee issue on individual. So what does that mean for you? When you call a company in Florida you might be dealing with individual vs group and which is cheaper? In GA you will hardly ever see an agent convert group to individual unless he or she wants to get sued, so you probably won't have that individual vs group barrier. Then again that dynamic may not even affect your ability to genrate a good qualified lead.

[moonlightandmargaritas]

Originally Posted by Ramond B

I have to get a handle on tit

Don't we all?

Be careful though, the ladies can be a little sensitive about it.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[insuremojo]

Originally Posted by GreenSky

A few years ago I paid $13 each for MA appointments and wrote 4 out of 5 (maybe more). Due to time constraints, I only ran about 20.

A few months later I bought 15 more and maybe sold one. Timing seems to be everything.

Would I pay $25 per appointment for qualified individual health leads? Absolutely. Would I pay $50? Maybe not so much.

I guess my way of selling is a combination of face to face and on the phone. I actually prefer to see my clients because for most people, explaining that an HSA is the best way to go is easier when I'm in front of them. However, I have sold my fair share without meeting the client.

To be relieved of the task of calling, convincing, and then setting a appointment would be terrific. I've just never seen it work for very long. But I'm always up for another try.

Rick

LOL, Rick works the way I do..hard!

If you're meeting face to face with clients than you gotta have brass cahonies! I still try and make all my appointments face to face but I won't pass up an easy phone sale. I can close with the best of them and would take a serious look into adding this into my repetoire if ROI is there.

Joseph

[Jenananda]

I know many agents who would love to work with a quality lead company. Many of the agents I work with would probably buy be intersted.
Jennifer

[moonlightandmargaritas]

Originally Posted by warrenins

For example, FL has guarantee issue on individual and group

Don't know where you get your information, but nothing could be further from the truth.

In Florida, individual health insurance is fully underwritten.

The only GI exception is folks who are HIPAA eligible.

[Ramond B]

Wow, thanks for th vote of confidence and hope. I figured there were still some old school face to face people out htere somewhere. Luckily fo rm im not looking for a ton of them. Just a few that wan tto work some appointments. Thanks for the info on the different states rules. that helps too. So if you were in my shoes what states would you try to target for these?

Originally Posted by warrenins

Raymond I have been selling group insurance in Ga for 14 years. If I'm understanding you correctly your lead generation program has a lot of merit. I think agents all over the country probably face the same dilema. Where and how do I get good leads. I can tell you there are still lots of group health agents in the state of Ga that still go door to door and leads are important. Most business owners expect you to come and see them. We are still a very agent driven market. Having said that, if you can bring legitimate leads to the table and convince agents to give it a try you might have a winning formula.
You mentioned you want to go national. Just be sure to get a feel for the market that you operate in. Insurance in Georgia is totally different than insurance in Florida. For example, FL has guarantee issue on individual and group, GA does not have guarantee issue on individual. So what does that mean for you? When you call a company in Florida you might be dealing with individual vs group and which is cheaper? In GA you will hardly ever see an agent convert group to individual unless he or she wants to get sued, so you probably won't have that individual vs group barrier. Then again that dynamic may not even affect your ability to genrate a good qualified lead.

[Ramond B]

LMAO my bad...

Originally Posted by moonlightandmargaritas

Don't we all?

Be careful though, the ladies can be a little sensitive about it.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[warrenins]

Re: In Florida, individual health insurance is fully underwritten.

My mistake, guess that's why I write in Ga not FL

[Ramond B]

Joe and Jen, Thanks for being positive. I know i can produce a quality product in this field, no doubt in my mind. It's just a matter of when will i feel confident enough to pull the trigger. The telemarkers are ready to go and the call center is already in place as it has been for years. I am researching to the point where I think I may be over analyzing just a bit. i know we had a good campaign before and with all that I have learned over the last few days will me the next campaigns better.

I am going to put a start dates later today for some time in Febuary. i think to start out I will look for 2-3 established members from the board (that actually meet people face to face) and give them a test campaign at cost. This way they are not taking a full risk in paying retail for the test campaign. For the small risk that they do take I will reward them with grand fathered pricing when it does infact prove to be a good product. The testers will neve pay retail prices. If my cost goes down so does theirs.

Ill be back on here later to let you all know the start date for dialing. Im really excited to get this going!

[healthagent]

I really don't see meeting with clients as being old school. I see it as being flexible. I sign up online just like everyone else but I'm not gonna miss a $1,200 family commission because I'm unwilling to drive 15 minutes down the road.

[Jenananda]

There are still a few people in the world that want a down to earth real person to take care of them year after year. I think the personal touch of meeting with your clients stirs referrals as well.

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

POSTED A FEW HOURS AGO ON Im seeking advice from health agents!! - Insurance Forum for Agents

"I would first like to introduce my self. My name is Raymond Bartreau. I am the owner of Best Rate Referrals LLC. Over the last 6 years I have been consulting Mortgage Brokers and LOs a like how to generate more business. We also have a telemarketing center in Las Vegas Nevada that we use to generate leads for them. We are looking to get into setting appointments for health insurance agents to go into new businesses and sell their policies.

I am looking for some advice from health agents that actually target new small business. Any advice at all would be great, such as, the best cities to do this wrok in, what is the average price for these types of leads, what are the average closing ratios on this type of marketing with american telemarketers? What are other companies minimums? Etc...

We did do a beta test in Las Vegas with an agent that actually cold called our office one time for insurance. We invited him in and he got our business. It turned a lightbulb on in my head and we ran a test for him. Out of 100 appointments over a 2 month span he wrote policies on 58% of them. Is this a good ratio? I don't know how many policies total he got but he did tell me that he got half individual and half group.

We are about to release these for sell to the open market but before I do I want to make sure I have everything down pat. maybe I can run a beta test for a couple members of this board to see where I can improve the campaign before we release it for sell.

Any help or feed back would be great.

Thanks!

[Melmunch3]

the best cities to do this wrok in

Same misspelling. However, there is nothing wrong with asking for info in multiple places, just a little laziness.

[arnguy]

What's the point, Chumps?

[Ramond B]

Exactly, i did cut and paste the message. The fact of the matter is that I actually did them all on the same day. For some reason the other site didn't allow my domain on there and i had to clear it with the moderator which took a couple days.

Sorry if i cheated on you guys on the other forum...lol i was doing research, i tend to look in more than one place. I will say this though that you all have been much more helpful and this site is going much better for me....

Sorry for affending you guys that are upset.

Originally Posted by Melmunch3

Same misspelling. However, there is nothing wrong with asking for info in multiple places, just a little laziness.

[Ramond B]

Exactly, money is money and if you can better your clsing ratio and get more referrals by doing things face to face then why the heck not.

When I say old school i mean the way everyone used to do sales. Face to face. Very little over the phone and of course the internet age has changed some things making it much easeier for sales people to be lazier. Some may call it working smarter and that is true if you writing a ton of business form your office without leaving. however if you dont have too much work then going on appointments will get you to that point.

The way I look at it is if you can write 50% of all the appointments I send you on and then you can get a referral out of every 5 appointments you sell, thats 60 minimum policies for every 100 orders purchased, MINIMUM.

Originally Posted by healthagent

I really don't see meeting with clients as being old school. I see it as being flexible. I sign up online just like everyone else but I'm not gonna miss a $1,200 family commission because I'm unwilling to drive 15 minutes down the road.

[somarco]

Interesting thread.

A ton of BS floating around.

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

"Out of 100 appointments over a 2 month span he wrote policies on 58% of them"

As someone said...that is BS (not my words).

Yet...there it was posted again on a different site.

Don't worry. I'm not upset. Let's just wait and see how it all plays out. If the 58% turns out to be accurate (documented)...I'll apologize for my senseless post.

[Alsky]

Since when is it frowned upon to promote a business or self on more than one area of media? Some of you have blogs, some do infomercials, some run ads, some want to help people, some are self serving... happens all the time and many on this forum are just as "guilty" if that is really the appropiate word here... as anyone else.

This spirit is what drives capitalism and this country for that matter... the strong survive, the weak complain and cry! Meanwhile healthy competition is just that... healthy! Just a little more healthier for the ones with the larger market share. Competition does wonders for pricing of products though huh?

This issue is really a non issue... if Raymond has a service or commodity that is welcome by some in the community... then it is what it is. In my opinion... No one should have a problem with that...

I for one happen to love this venue, and have learned alot from some of the seasoned individuals that unselfishly publish their thoughts, advice, humor and teachings. Sometimes we just stray a little, thats all.

Ok, said my peace, now I am ready for the gauntlet...

But for what its worth, Cheers!

Al D.

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Al...I agree

In a forum such as this, we are all free to give our opinions...and that's what makes it interesting.