Cold Call Script For Annuities - Feedback Requested

[moonlightandmargaritas]

Again, this is why your advice is rarely sought on these forums, you project your ideas of success on the op's marketing strategy (I like to kid with you P).

Rarely...thankfully. Don't have time for more!

It was HE that is measuring his terms of success over building a warmer list.

I don't think so. Here's a quote from one of his first posts:

"I will be shooting for between .03 - 05 percent interested in meeting. As long as I am pushing the numbers, this should conservatively result in 5 appts per week."

Don't see where he ever said he was "interested in sending out info and building a list.

If I am not correct you have had in house staff cold call to develop lists....why can't he do it?

I had folks calling B2B (not 90% on DNC like B2C) for a DEMAND product (health insurance)...much different beast that annuities!

...instead of attacking his ideas or strategies (he wants to develop send me info's) you should give him some interesting things to say for his opener

I could give him the greatest opener of all time...and it wouldn't make any difference. Between the number of folks on the DNC list, and the fact that annuities are NOT a demand "product" that's gonna be sold over the phone - it doesn't matter. He's trying to turn an "advisor sale" into a "transaction". The only ones that can do that successfully is the bank. They don't cold call - and they know when the CD's are maturing!

It's a LOSING CAMPAIGN, just as he's finding out. No matter how much you may "want to", it's futile trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. Find a round hole!

I have seen you give gems (albeit sparingly...) but must you make it known your ideals before giving freely of your wisdom??

Justin, I love the back-and-forth, and I love the word "albeit". Thanks for the compliment on the "gems". I tried to give this guy some wisdom - but his mind was made up before he ever asked for any advice. He wasn't looking for wisdom, he was looking for affirmation.

 

[Stephen]

Pastor Charles has generated a list of 22 people that are interested in receiving information, something that some agents pay $20-$30 a pop for, so there is a value for the efforts, even if it has not been realized.

I think that it will be a tough road to run, and I would personally add a few more products into the spiel to keep the lights on while whale hunting, but defiantly an A for effort.

 

[Justin Bilyj]

Who knows, he could perhaps mail something, follow up, and they roll-over a cd or another annuity, everyone won't know until he puts in place a process to not only mail, but follow up on the information.
I wonder what he's sending them.

 

[charlesj]

UPDATE: TOTAL DIALS MADE - 1,808
1,242 answering machines (69%)
328 numbers no good (18%)
No Contact Total = 1,570 (87%)

Total contacts made = 238 out of which...
194 not interested (82%)
36 info leads (15%)
5 people need to call back (2%)
3 green cherries (1.3%)
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First off I don't think you should be allowed in cold calling forums...you might get banned;-) lol

He has been hovering around the 80's, he can't escape that fact, so looking at his new angle of wanting to develop warmer lead base that he can wave market to I saw he accomplished WAY more today calling, look how many send me info's he got. Thats a tremendous increase for him, especially for the number of days he's been at it.

Thank you for playing

Thank you emptyeternity. Your support and advice are much appreciated!!!

 

[VolAgent]

UPDATE: TOTAL DIALS MADE - 1,808
1,242 answering machines (69%)
328 numbers no good (18%)
No Contact Total = 1,570 (87%)

Total contacts made = 238 out of which...
194 not interested (82%)
36 info leads (15%)
5 people need to call back (2%)
3 green cherries (1.3%)

What are green cherries, appointments?

I have a feeling you aren't pressing enough for the appointment. Your entire focus should be on getting an appointment during a cold call. I wouldn't waste a lot of time on objections, but you should be as focused as possible on getting each person to an appointment.

If you do that, you will run a lot of appointments that really aren't interested, but you also will stop trying to sell over the phone and get some appointments of people with interest but who aren't going to buy over the phone. It goes both ways.

 

[charlesj]

If the people are interested in more info then you should either set an appt or sell it over the phone. Sending them info usually accomplishes nothing.

Thank you for your advice. I have read the books and know the logic of "mailers are failers". I immediately found out though that attempting to sell annuities or portfolio management over the phone was not working. As someone here indicated already, it works best for commodity type products.

According to Bill Good, he recommends the approach I am actually taking right now with simply finding people with interest in getting more information and then dripping them. He says that approx 50% of your new business can come from a drip campaign as long as you are dedicated to it. We shall see...
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There are a number of dialers out there, but I'm not familiar with all of them. I'll answer the below based on my dialer since that's the one I know best.



You can absolutely set it up to broadcast any number you'd like.



That can be completely avoided. Often times that's the result of either old hardware or a delay as the result of having the dial ratio set to high. If you keep your dial ratio adjusted correctly it should never happen.



You'd be surprised how much time you spend doing what you're referring to as "absolutely no time to track". With my dialer system it logs every time you called a lead and let's you have the notes right in there. You can even setup custom fields to track things specific to what you're interested in logging, such as what insurance they're currently with or things of that nature.



You certainly are making a lot of calls, but you'd easily be making more with a dialer. You can comfortably presume you'll make at least double the amount of calls using a dialer vs your current setup. For any number of reasons you may prefer your current system, but a dialer would let you make more contacts in less time without losing out on the quality of what you're currently doing.

If you have any questions about dialers feel free to let me know. You (or anyone else for that matter) can shoot me an email, josh@affordablemarketinglists.com.

Thanks Josh. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. With the volume of calls I am making, I should consider a dialer. Another question came to mind, I assume your dialer can be programmed to leave a prerecorded message, correct?
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When I started out and was to go to to BtoB it was touted as a "complete waste of time" by my management.

But I got one client (as defined as a policy where I received commission) per 4 hours of BtoB. At 30 businesses per hour that's 1 client per 120 or a 99.02% "no" rate.

Waste of time? At $600 per policy average commission it was $600 for 4 hours of "work." Waste of time? That's up to the individual agent.

Thanks for the encouragement Crabcake Johnny. This is exactly my thinking as well. Yes it is a lot of effort but if I only were to sell 1-2 small annuities a month while also adding some managed clients and medicare clients for residuals, my bills for the month are paid for and then some plus I will be adding to my residual income and be in a position to pay for qualified leads.

Here is something else I learned which has really helped to keep me motivated and keep dialing... From Allan Pease's "Questions Are The Answers"... The law of averages and ratios. My current ratio can be expressed mathematically as:

1,808 : 238 : 44 : 0

1,808 dials made
238 people contacted
44 warm bodies
0 sales

Let's assume for demonstration purposes that one of the warm bodies buys an annuity. The average annuity size is $100k and approx commissions would be $4k. This would equate to an earnings of approx $2.21 per dial ($4,000 / 1,808 dials). Yes, every single dial including the answering machines and wrong numbers. That motivates me and keeps me dialing because I know that the sales will come. I will keep everyone posted and thank you all for your words of encouragement and support and all other insight provided.
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Pastor Charles has generated a list of 22 people that are interested in receiving information, something that some agents pay $20-$30 a pop for, so there is a value for the efforts, even if it has not been realized.

I think that it will be a tough road to run, and I would personally add a few more products into the spiel to keep the lights on while whale hunting, but defiantly an A for effort.

Thanks Central. I agree with you and I have added more products. I am finding that every day I am refining my script a little bit and seeing the results. Today's results have been the best so far. Saturday was good but the afternoons in general seem to be dead zones. Best time to get a hold of someone is early in the morning or around 4-6 when they get home.
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Who knows, he could perhaps mail something, follow up, and they roll-over a cd or another annuity, everyone won't know until he puts in place a process to not only mail, but follow up on the information.
I wonder what he's sending them.

Here's my approach...

1. Mail basic letter with business card that lists our services and include one of our brochures which goes into a little bit more detail.

- wait 10 days -

2. Mail copy of our firm's quarterly newsletter which is actually very good.

- wait couple days -

3. Follow-up phone call with scripted voicemail message, just touching base, etc...

- wait couple days -

4. Follow-up phone call on Saturday morning (seems to be best time) and try to get them on phone.

- continue to drip them at least monthly with a phone call or something in the mail until the buy, die, or they ask to no longer be contacted.
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What are green cherries, appointments?

I have a feeling you aren't pressing enough for the appointment. Your entire focus should be on getting an appointment during a cold call. I wouldn't waste a lot of time on objections, but you should be as focused as possible on getting each person to an appointment.

If you do that, you will run a lot of appointments that really aren't interested, but you also will stop trying to sell over the phone and get some appointments of people with interest but who aren't going to buy over the phone. It goes both ways.

Thanks for advice. Green cherries are the needles in the haystack that are decision-makers that are definitely interested that I need to follow-up with to qualify them for money and time.

Attempting to set appointments right off the bat didn't go over so well as I documented in one of my previous posts. I apologize for these posts getting to long. Just want to make sure I get back to everyone and I really appreciate all the great tips and encouragement. I got more letters to do and plan on continuing with my calls around 3:30 or so. I have another great idea that I am going to experiment with and will share with the group.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I do not subscribe to the "laws of averages." It's a very dangerous philosophy. If you do something wrong 100 times then you won't get any clients.

All there is in this business is ROI. It's either there or it's not. You can generally establish a decent ROI after a month of marketing a particular method.

For telemarketing you should be able to get a gauge of ROI much sooner. My mortgage company doesn't care how many prospects are interested and if my wife wants to go out for dinner she doesn't care how much I have "in the pipeline."

It's deals in underwriting. Nothing else matters.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

...the approach I am actually taking right now with simply finding people with interest in getting more information and then dripping them.

Your original plan called for "3 to 5 people per week who were interested to meet", weren't those your words?

Since that's now switched to "interested in getting more information", I guess you're finding that the naysayers (including me) that you dismissed - turned out to be right.

 

[LauderdaleBAUS]

Bro, how are you going on appointments if you are on the phone all the time? What I do, I have my solid leads of like 100,000 or so people in South Florida, I hire callers (2-4 of them) to call and use my script. I pay these people $12 per hour, each works 14 hours a week in the late afternoon 4-730pm. If I am on the phone calling, I know I am not making money on an appt. Plus I just hate talking. If you can afford to pay someone $12 an hour to call for you it is worth it but you got to make sure they are good. One deal can pay for 6 months of their salary.

 

[charlesj]

OK. Here is my revised script... Please let me know your thoughts and how it may be improved. Thank you.

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INTRO
Hi Mr. / Mrs. _______. My name is _______ and I am calling from _______ here in _______. Real quick, the purpose for my call…

PURPOSE
We specialize in retirement and estate planning as well as guaranteed rates and lifetime income.

QUESTION
Are you currently working with anyone?
Great. How have you been doing?
Let me ask you, is your retirement portfolio _______ dollars or more?
What type of investments are you in?
That's what I'm seeing when I talk to people.
It sounds like we me may be a good fit. I'd like to send you some information on myself and my firm. Are you still at________?
Great. Again, my name is _______ with _______. I'll mail this out to you. Take a look at it and I'll talk to you soon. Have a great day.