Average days to close?

Ambush selling. What a concept.

How many times have you seen Boiler Room and Glengarry Glen Ross? I bet you have every line memorized.

Your too Funny, Slam! But thats the Normal competition we deal with everyday, Not much competition at all, Most Consumers wont respond to such tactics. So Keep up the Great Work:no:
 
I am finding that although I close a decent amount of shared Internet Leads (and certainly anyone who calls me off ads) pretty quickly (within 2-4 days), a very large part of my business is from "cold" internet leads that I eventually re-connect with or that just call me back after 30+ days and say things like:

"You know I got a sh*tload of messages/emails from people all over the country but your messages seemed sincere and I like that you didn't bully me", etc etc.

Basically what I find is that, by leaving messages that interject a little odd humor, while still being professional and doing multiple followups, serious customers that, for whatever reason (probably the insanity of being hounded so much initially) weren't ready to buy that day come back to me and end up buying something.I send out actual mailed copies of rates with a cover letter (adding .44 to my cost, including envelope/paper) the moment I first call the lead and I found this has helped as well. ANYTHING you can do to distinguish yourself from the competition and seem more human is good.

A recent study I did has me closing approx (and I took out credited/uninsurable leads #'s) 27% of all the Shared Internet Leads I have bought since Jan 1, and of those 77 sales I have had, 68 have been Issued. Plus, on a few of the non-issued I was able to sell either STM or in 2 cases I established Small Group Plans for them. So, even though my initial close rate might not be as high as others, when you factor in these older leads eventually buying it becomes a pretty strong #.

One other note about the "instant sale" vs. working the prospect a little more and building a relationship, etc is that I do also beleive it increases longevity. An example:

I started selling Assurant Health (didn't become a full "broker" until middle 07) early in 2007, primarily the OD HSA plan and a couple Value Plans, etc. Between Jan '07 and end of Dec '07 I sold 23 Issued plans with Assurant, about 5 of which were 2 year rate locks others the normal 12. Well, here in April of 2008 I have lost ONE of these sales. ONE. I strongly believe this is because of my relationship building and explanation of the plans and the service I provide my customers. I am now experiencing similar retention rates (though not quite as high!) with Anthem, Golden Rule, etc. I agree with the statement that customers who buy right away may leave right away; they are often just hopping from plan to plan with what they feel are good "deals".

Now I am going to see if the whole Norvax product portfolio does anything for me...will keep you posted.
 
"closing 27% of all the Shared Internet Leads"

That is excellent. And if accurate, clearly the highest percentage of anybody in this Forum.

Normally, it is very difficult to even talk to 27% (by phone) of those leads.

Kudos to you.
 
CT -

Care to share what you mail out?

I have thought about mailing info but, like a lot of other things, just never got around to it.

What other drip methods do you use?

Anyone closing 27% must be doing something right.
 
CT -

Care to share what you mail out?

I have thought about mailing info but, like a lot of other things, just never got around to it.

What other drip methods do you use?

Anyone closing 27% must be doing something right.

Keep in mind that as I mentioned I am excluding ALL leads that get returned as well as leads that are uninsurable based on Indv Underwriting from the carriers I work with. 27% is certainly a number I am happy with but as good as I did last quarter I think it will tend to average out to about 15-20% max (which is still cool with me!)

Anyway, when I used to work with the EVIL MEGA LIFE years ago, I used to pride myself on the fact that I sold the best of the crappy plans (none of the Health Choice garbage) they offered, had very good retention rates and had very little complaints. There were some very simple reasons for this that still apply today:

-I was upfront, honest, lighthearted and interesting to talk to when marketing by phone.
-I ALWAYS explained to those I called that they have many choices when it comes to Healthcare, and hopefully my service/integrity would make them choose to work with me
-I used humor as a way to "lighten things up" on the phone, at the point of sale and when offering service. Used to be a bit of a hack stand up comic so that helped.

As for the follow up emails/letters I send with quotes, here is a sample part of the letter I send out immediately after lead comes in.

"Dear Potential Insurnace Customer,

By now I am sure you have been hammered with phone calls from every state in the country and seemingly every agent in the world; how fun this experience must be for you! I know my annoying messages/emails might be part of those, and I do apologize. However, I am a local, family owned brokerage that specializes in service, not quantity, and if you'd like a NO PRESSURE, HONEST opinion on your best options for Health Insurance, please call my office and I'd be glad to help you. I can promise you the phone calls will eventually stop (and my office usually makes about 4-5 attempts by phone), but if I were you, in the meantime I would just record yourself screaming some Death Metal lyrics on a 9 minute loop and leave as your outgoing message. I'll make sure I block my ears when I call again.

I look forward to working with you!"

This is one variation I have used and I can't tell you how many people have called, sometimes 45+ days later saying "You know you were right, everyone in the world DID call but you made me laugh and now that I'm ready I want to deal with you."

Hey, let's face it, humor alone isn't going to always win these folks over but it helps. I also have a great system for following up via email(which I currently do all on my own, no program) and I think at the end of the day I just sound "different" than the Health Benefits Direct a**wipes that keep calling, etc.
 
Destroys me; I'm around 8%.

Trust me, I am no hero and I will be the first to admit it's a high number and not one I expect to sustain long term, though I do feel 15-20%, excluding uninsurables, is do-able and here's why:

-I think far too many people give up on SIL(Shared Internet Leads) too quickly and I think a HUGE percentage of these folks never even see your emails you send (many claim they never got mine, spam folders, etc). I mail a copy of quotes, I leave odd quirky messages and do so over a solid 10-14 day period initially, and continue to do so for a month via follow up emails with subject lines like "Sick of all the phone calls, William??" and "Top Ten Reasons You Want To Strangle InsureMe.com".

-If you don't count fake leads and uninsurables, for the most part you have real people actually looking for Insurance. I know with some lead vendors it's a little hokey how these names are generated but I know for me, for the ones I eventually reach, they pretty much never say "Oh I never was looking..., it's a mistake". Maybe I have been lucky with current vendors but I know I ditched MostChoice and Netquote for that very reason. So, if you differentiate yourself from the pack and they are actually looking, why wouldn't 30-40% close rate even be possible?

-The leads that are "just looking" and have no intentions of buying today are often times converted into either a Stand Alone Dental product or STM that fit their current budget/needs. A lot of times a young 24 year old kid will say "Oh man, my parents are on me about this but I can't afford $125/month." So I'll suggest a $40-$50 STM plan, and leave a message with the parents explaing "Hey, we got your kid into something Short Term/cheap but I suggest he upgrades soon when he can afford it.", this in turn has lead to some of those parents calling me a month or so later and upgrading them to Anthem "Tonik" or similar.

Hey, I'll admit I am doing decent so far this year but I am also not working on huge volume which would start to skew the numbers as my ability to contact everyone would suffer...doing EVERYTHING myself right now and working HARD. I went out today for 3 hours and put up 275 Door Hangers and almost passed out going up/down the f**king stairs at this complex!
Who knows, next year at this time I could be posting about my pathetic 3% close rate...it's a streaky business!
 
What kind of cover letter do you use when you mail out a proposal?

You have not been using Norvax, so what kind of proposal did you send out?
 
What kind of cover letter do you use when you mail out a proposal?

You have not been using Norvax, so what kind of proposal did you send out?

I send a "Top Ten" list of quotes via email with brief plan summaries (very colorful and easy to read so they don't all look the same) and also "Apply Now" links to click which lead them to my broker site for each respective carrier. I then print out that physical email and mail to clients with a cover letter mentioning some of the stuff I previously posted. Nothing too exciting I just do it consistently and religiously. While I was posting the last response I had a women call me and say "I just got back from Florida and I had about 20 messages on my machine but I saved yours and wanted to call you...", etc etc. This was a 3 week old lead from InsureMe. She liked that I was local as well as that I sounded "like the guy that used to mow my lawn". Curious, but I'll take it as long as it results in a sale!
 
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