I probably get 5 to 10 calls each and every day from agents wanting to come with me to sell final expense insurance. From internet searches, they found that my agency has the highest contracts available for street agents to sell for our companies. What happens in 90% of the cases, though, is that they'll get the top contracts available and then sit there looking at that BIG percentage, as if it's going to equate to money in their bank account.
These same agents come back weeks or months later, saying "I would go on a 70% contract for final expense if you'd just give me free leads." Why? Because they either cannot manage purchasing and running their own leads or their closing skills are not adequate with the leads they've had returned to justify their return on lead investment.
Still other agents will call and ask for free leads.. "Do you have free leads?" or "Do you give discounted leads?" These are agents that have bounced from one IMO to another and yet another, seeking releases, new contracts, releases and new contracts again. They think the secret sauce is in the different IMO when it's really in the mirror. Anyway, I digress.
Having made relationships across our great country with those in the top of our field, I have taken the advice of my mentors who have repeatedly told me that you sell more final expense going after the health market FIRST. The leads are then free for final expense - but actually, you get paid for prospecting.
The benefits for starting a conversation about Medicare Supplements with seniors BEFORE mentioning anything about final expense include the following:
1) Seniors love to talk about their health issues going on. They hate to talk about death and dying (final expense).
2) Seniors love to get the best bang for their buck. By representing JUST the most inexpensive Medicare Supplement providers, we can usually save them between $300 to $1,200 per year.
3) We provide found money for life insurance. Why? We save then between $300 to $1,200 per year. That's per person. For a couple, you could easily save them $600 per year and then, very casually bring up what kind of benefit $600 per year would provide to their spouse or children for their burial costs or for a legacy gift to their grandchildren or favorite church or charity.
4) Saving someone money results in referrals!! There is no better way to get news to spread like a virus (viral marketing) like saving someone a lot of money. In the tight-knit senior community, when you have saved a couple $1,000, it is very easy to understand why they start telling everyone they know about the savings you offered. (Especially when using our referral marketing system - more on that later).
5) By leading with Medicare Supplement sales, you're not working the projects. This is a big difference for most final expense agents who work leads in the $0 to $20,000 annual income category and spend many days working in the housing projects or trailer parks. That's not to say that you won't find some seniors in trailer parks, but when you do an initial sort for who you'll be talking with, you can put the bottom floor at $20,000 - not the top. This makes for happier agents, at the end of the day.
6) Medicare Supplements are all the same. Medicare supplements are a commodity. All of the benefits have to be the same from carrier to carrier, based on the plan letter (C, D, F, etc.).
The only question for the senior to decide on, then, is what do you want to pay for it? This makes it a simple decision based on cost. We're only going to represent the lowest cost carriers in any given market. Why would you want to represent the highest cost companies selling the exact same product?
7) Unlike selling Medicare Advantage, we can sell Medicare Supplements 365 days a year. We can call seniors, we can go see them. We can replace whatever they currently have and we are not limited by CMS marketing guidelines. Those guidelines only apply to Medicare Advantage - which the President has made clear will be going away within a few years.
Many final expense agents know absolutely nothing about Medicare or selling Medicare Supplements. That's OK. Training from the best in the industry is provided to our contracted agents. Training, scripts, worksheets, contracts - they're all on our secure website.
The best thing an agent can do is to get contracted with our Medicare Supplement companies. The process takes much longer (usually) than the final expense life companies, so begin the process as soon as possible.
For our agents we have:
1) List source for qualified seniors as low as 3 cents each. The cost goes higher depending on how specific you want to get for your targeted list of seniors. The lists are already scrubbed against the Do Not Call list, so that's not a problem at all.
2) A proven script that has been honed and perfected for over 15 years to immediately let you know if you're getting somewhere with a potential client or wasting your time. It, very quickly, also allows you to gather a valuable database of who your potential clients are already with. This means that if they are not wanting to move right now, you'll have in your database their company information so that you can call them when you learn their carrier has a 20+% rate increase! This very technique has earned agents $30,000+ in one month from simply capturing this data with every phone conversation.
3) A 100% web hosted predictive dialer service that costs just $68 per month. This is not an "automated" dialer that calls people with a recording. This is a dialer that calls YOUR LIST of people and just puts you on the phone with the people as they're answering their phone. You do not have to hear busy signals, the dial tone, the ringing phones, the answering machines, etc. This makes your calling time four times more productive. It also saves on your fingers! You can easily call 100 people within a 2 hour calling block, have conversations, etc. appointments, etc. and skip the 1,000 keystrokes into your phone that this would have cost you! Your fingers will LOVE you for this technology!
4) We have unique selling opportunities in specific geographic regions right now where our carrier is 20% - 30% lower than the nearest competition. It does not matter where you live. You can sell 100% over the phone with these companies. Some of them have 100% electronic enrollment while others want you to mail the applications to the client. In either case, though, remember that you are saving folks between $20 - $100 per month - they will send it back to you!
5) A referral based marketing system that is fully automated and works like magic. You simply plug your new clients into the referral marketing system and it does the rest - fully automated. It sends out birthday cards, Christmas cards, and specially designed referral generating cards with YOUR picture on them and proven, effective script that works like a charm. This system writes in your own handwriting, never forgets a birthday, anniversary, or referral card schedule, and is designed specifically for insurance agents. (See a preview here.)
Many 6 and 7 figure earners in insurance are using this exact system and we have access to the cards they've designed for referrals- just for our team.
My phone has been ringing off the hook as I have mentioned this new, cross-selling system to a few of our top producing agents. While they've been doing great in buying leads and leading with final expense, they recognize the impact of first-year commissions for 6 full years that they earn with Medicare Supplements. For most guys doing this full-time, they add between $60,000 to $70,000 in commissions to the books each year. These numbers compound as you get the exact same commissions in years 1-6.
We have decided to offer just the lowest priced companies in each market. In some cases, this also means that they're the biggest named companies (AARP, Mutual of Omaha). This gives real credibility to your client. But, at the end of the day, it really comes down to price, with Medicare Supplements.
We have the lists, the scripts, the dialer, the training - there is nothing else missing except to plug in those agents that are tired of working the projects, tired of paying $26 per lead, and tired of getting zero referrals in the final expense-only marketplace.
Visit: www.myunlimitedleads.com or www.finalexpensebyphone.com.
CW
Posts
