Hey guys, I've been working in this industry since September with almost no luck. I've made very few sales so far and can't figure out what is wrong...
I apologize if this starts to sound like rambling, I'm just extremely frustrated and keep adding things to it.
When I was introduced to the company I work for they were so energetic about how great it is and that during open enrollment people are always looking for insurance. I didn't have a whole lot of money at the time, but thought.. "What the heck, the numbers/commissions they're showing me are great. I'll give it a shot." I've worked in retail sales, but never done anything over the phone before.
Now I've always been told that the toughest time in a sales career is usually around your first 3-4 months. The issue is that I can't find anybody who will listen to what I can do for them. And those that do just want me to save them money and have no interest about the quality of their plan. I've spoken to our company's #1 agents and they're biggest thing was making 100 calls a day. The only thing is that these aren't 100 calls to 100 different people. It consists of 3 touches the first day (Morning/Afternoon/Evening), a touch the 2nd day, 4th day, 6th day, 9th day. All including voicemails for every call.
These calls are all to leads that come through our system. Most being Aged Leads that were once fresh and now are 3-12 months old. Most of these people don't pick up the phone, they've been called by 3 or 4 other agents in our company, and I'm wasting a majority of my time leaving these voicemails to people who will never call me back.
If I ever reach 100, which most of the time I get too frustrated to get past like 50 or 60.. It looks like this.
About 80 of those calls are voicemails, 15 are people who are either uninterested now or get it through their employer, and the 5 who are interested are typically flat broke and want their plan a couple hundred dollars cheaper than anything I can offer them. I know my job is to find their pain and create value, but once I finally get someone on the phone I'm completely surprised and forget what to say.
I'm already out of money, in a little bit of debt (which feels like a lot when there is nothing coming in), and I don't want to give up. But don't know what
I should be doing to find more people who are interested. Part of me wants to eliminate the voicemails and multiple calls to the same lead so that I may actually start talking to more people, but everybody else swears by what I've been told. I believe in it too, but I'm at the point where I need to make some sales/money first before I can passively prospect like this.
I don't have the money to buy leads or advertise, so the phone is really my only option. I'm also 23 years old and use Facebook, but can't figure out how to market myself to people my age. Most aren't interested in health insurance (to my knowledge).
As far as marketing to the right people, and the way that the marketplace works. The wealthier people are all getting their plans paid for by employers, but may be interested in improving their coverage (Of course none of the leads I receive are ever in this bracket), middle range (like 40-80k?) are still getting it through work or are trying to get it even cheaper (even though most of the time their group plan is cheaper than what I can offer), and the 15-40k who's family qualifies for subsidy but they don't want anything to do with "Obamacare" and are unrealistic about the cost their insurance should be.
If you guys have any advice to give to a new agent I would really appreciate it.
I apologize if this starts to sound like rambling, I'm just extremely frustrated and keep adding things to it.
When I was introduced to the company I work for they were so energetic about how great it is and that during open enrollment people are always looking for insurance. I didn't have a whole lot of money at the time, but thought.. "What the heck, the numbers/commissions they're showing me are great. I'll give it a shot." I've worked in retail sales, but never done anything over the phone before.
Now I've always been told that the toughest time in a sales career is usually around your first 3-4 months. The issue is that I can't find anybody who will listen to what I can do for them. And those that do just want me to save them money and have no interest about the quality of their plan. I've spoken to our company's #1 agents and they're biggest thing was making 100 calls a day. The only thing is that these aren't 100 calls to 100 different people. It consists of 3 touches the first day (Morning/Afternoon/Evening), a touch the 2nd day, 4th day, 6th day, 9th day. All including voicemails for every call.
These calls are all to leads that come through our system. Most being Aged Leads that were once fresh and now are 3-12 months old. Most of these people don't pick up the phone, they've been called by 3 or 4 other agents in our company, and I'm wasting a majority of my time leaving these voicemails to people who will never call me back.
If I ever reach 100, which most of the time I get too frustrated to get past like 50 or 60.. It looks like this.
About 80 of those calls are voicemails, 15 are people who are either uninterested now or get it through their employer, and the 5 who are interested are typically flat broke and want their plan a couple hundred dollars cheaper than anything I can offer them. I know my job is to find their pain and create value, but once I finally get someone on the phone I'm completely surprised and forget what to say.
I'm already out of money, in a little bit of debt (which feels like a lot when there is nothing coming in), and I don't want to give up. But don't know what
I should be doing to find more people who are interested. Part of me wants to eliminate the voicemails and multiple calls to the same lead so that I may actually start talking to more people, but everybody else swears by what I've been told. I believe in it too, but I'm at the point where I need to make some sales/money first before I can passively prospect like this.
I don't have the money to buy leads or advertise, so the phone is really my only option. I'm also 23 years old and use Facebook, but can't figure out how to market myself to people my age. Most aren't interested in health insurance (to my knowledge).
As far as marketing to the right people, and the way that the marketplace works. The wealthier people are all getting their plans paid for by employers, but may be interested in improving their coverage (Of course none of the leads I receive are ever in this bracket), middle range (like 40-80k?) are still getting it through work or are trying to get it even cheaper (even though most of the time their group plan is cheaper than what I can offer), and the 15-40k who's family qualifies for subsidy but they don't want anything to do with "Obamacare" and are unrealistic about the cost their insurance should be.
If you guys have any advice to give to a new agent I would really appreciate it.