Insurance Lead Generation - Half Success Story, Half Me Needing Advice

First of all -Calm down buddy... If they need leads now they will still need them when you have a full crew later, and telling them that you are booked up only makes you more in demand, just keep their phone numbers and get them on an email list asap.

Secondly, congrats on your contracts!

There is always going to be a bigger demand for insurance leads than can EVER be filled. It will never saturate. If you can manage to nail your crew down tight, you will NEVER lack business!

The same trouble you are having is the trouble I had, and my friend Al diberadino at professionaltelemarketingsolutions dot com has... There is too much demand, and you have to turn away contracts alot unless you have a huge crew.

Thats good bad news! lol

3rdly Marc, where are you hailing from? 5 bucks per hour is really low pay for telemarketers... I know you hate to hear that but you really get what you pay for in this area.

4thly

Odesk is a place that wouldnt be my first choice. Career builder would be. Career builder has main offices in orlando and chicago, in those areas they also have free employment rags offline in almost every convenience store or street corner, so you get alot of responses (hundreds) from offline newspapers when you advertise with them in their main office cities.

I once landed a GM job at a large telemarketing room because they were only generating 20 interviews per month from their employment ads, and I offered to do their employment ads for them and sent them like 200 applicants the first month.

If you study the cities where your online advertising venues have main offices, most of them do free print rags in those cities too and they are EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK!

5thly, dont mention in your ad that its a virtual call center job, explain that in your interview, let them think its just like any other job if possible and then surprise them with the benefit of working from home on the call. If you tell them that upfront they may think its MLM or something and the serious career telemarketers will not respond. You need alot of applicants because 2 out of 3 wont work out. You have to figure that into the equation. It seems hard but once you have a good flowing employment ad it gets easy.

6thly,

Charge alot more for group leads 4-5 a day is average for group, but you should be charging more like $60-$100 for that.... at least $50, also gather your testimonials and knock your individual price up another 5 bucks if possible. That could be the cushion that takes some stress off your ROI potential. On health leads a telemarketer should be able to a minimum of one per hour or 2-3 if they are really working. If not, they arent really working. Health leads are too easy. Im not high balling, those are real average numbers, it isnt like web design.

As far as telemarketers sticking to the script... Tell them like you did, "stick to it or you are fired". You cant afford misrepresentation in this industry nor unqualified leads.

One way is to load your scripts into the auto dialer so that when they log into the "group" campaign, the scripts shows up on their monitor for that particular offer, and when they log out into "life" or whatever, the appropriate script pops up on each call there as well.

Can I see the script you are using?

Sometimes one line can double production. It may be in the greeting or the body, who knows... Definately DO NOT USE FOREIGN TELEMARKETERS FOR THIS!

I know the lead tree does, but still their quality of leads suck. They have fulltime peiople who do nothing but create new contracts daily because usually after the first two runs, their prospects cancel... they just arent motivated to care.

Also.... offer an incentive for reaching the minimum goal... determine what you need to profit, and offer them DOUBLE the hourly for that that day IF they write ten leads.

Or offer them a $100 weekly bonus "IF" they hit a certain number.

Marc, I personally can write 40 Insurance leads a week by myself, and Al can verify that, because I tested his script for a week by myself before I gave it to my crew and wrote 40 health leads in about 25 hours at half speed really, doing other things in between... trust me its possible. A MINIMUM for a telemarketer should be 7 per day. If not they arent really trying that hard, or the script isnt working.

If they get info wrong "MAKE THEM" call the customer back and get the right info, after a few of those they will pay more attention, because they will lose leads in the process and hurt themselves, and then start doing it right the first time.

Ask me ANYTHING about this subject that you want.

Good Job man!

Ps. I dig your sig. We all have to be "about" something to be the most effective, and it looks like you know what you are about and all the elements of your package are screaming "Im the appointment man"... Trust me that will pay off sooner than you think. People know that John Durham is the "telemarketing guy"... and they now know that Marc V is the "appointment setting guy"....

Most of these people; we dont know what the hell they are about...even if their advice is good , we go to the "go to" people on any given subject.

Love your post, what a great frustration to have, even though I know that when you are in it, it doesnt seem that great! lol

Ps. ever thought of offering an offline work opportunity to people right here on the WF?

Start a classified or WSO maybe offering people a work from home opportunity. Heck I might even charge for it.

You want me to do it for you? You keep the employees and I keep the headhunter fees on the ad?

You are offering legitimate opportunity here that people could actually make a living with. My brother needed work and I set him up with contracts and he made a living for a little over a year working from home doing this.

We could consider that (a wso on it). May take some thought to write the copy but... You could pay ten bucks per lead to a telemarketer probably, if you market it as an opportunity instead of a job...

I dunno though, on second thought, a wso on this would probably make 100 sales, and you dont have that much work available yet, so maybe not charge in this case. The training they would receive alone would be worth the price though (as you have found )

Just food for thought.

One other thought....

Lead tree is a BPO company. They also sub contract alot of their contracts out to other rooms. If you are good at closing agencies you can make alot of money doing that. Maybe you could mark up your leads another ten bucks or so, and find companies like Al's mentioned above who do this fulltime... and offer him the fulfillment gigs, and you just collect the mark up on each contract.

Back when I was in between opportunities the lead tree paid me to close agencies for them. They would send me leads and I would call and close them for a percentage, but didnt have to fulfill the contracts myself.

Last thought - call lists.

Make sure your individual people are only calling companies with ten employees or less... other wise half their time is wasted.

Also make sure your group people are only calling companies with ten employees or higher, if not, then half their time is wasted.

You can get your lists at the TMF , I think you are a gold member right?

If not I will make you one just based on the merit of your effort here at no cost.

Man! I was offline at the WF for a few weeks, but I really made up for lost time in this last 24 hours I guess. I love this place! A day can fly right by me here and I dont even know what time it is for most of it.

It was a good day of posting! Amen.

Do you have a website?

If you do, have you thought about using a lead generation software or program to collect details from your site visitors?

3 leads in 8 hours is absolutely unacceptable. I think they're only working about 4 hours if they could only get 3-4 leads. Missing information is also unacceptable. It makes you look bad to your client if you don't produce quality leads. If these telemarketers can't understand basic instructions, they need to go..period!


Have you not spoken to them specifically about what script they're supposed to be using? I don't understand how they're getting them mixed up. This is crucial to your businesses' reputation . You want to get referrals from BOTH of those agents, not just one.

Congrats on the contract though! I would suggest either doing a skype meeting or something to drill it into these workers what is REQUIRED of them, not just expected. I really would recommend you let them go (I think you already have?) If you did, you need to start putting up ads all over the place, craigslist, other classified sites, monster, and career builder.

If you can't find anyone soon enough you may have to do the calling yourself. Have you generated leads on your own before? If so, that's the route you will have to take until you can find someone. I agree with John Durham that leads will be in demand no matter when you start, but me personally, I don't like to keep money waiting

To sum it up, it is imperative that any telemarketer you hire has a list of questions that the agent NEEDS from a lead in order to make that lead an accurate one. You don't want to hand over 30 leads and only 12 have all of the qualities of a good lead.

Make sure they have the correct script. With your next set of workers maybe give each one a specific job to do that requires a specific script. Example: if you have 2 workers..give one the individual lead script, give the other the group script so there will be no confusion (it shouldn't have been any in the first place lol)

Diedra forgot to mention that she has also been successful at landing lead generation clients (Agencies), so if anyone wonders why her advice is so strong. Thats why!

She came out of the box swinging like a champ on this too!

Dont worry about messing up on pricing at first, that was just for future reference, we all do it.

We get close to our first sale and we want to put it over the top and sell ourselves short sometimes, but still we get to "scratch the pad" as they say , and it gives us confidence that we can close the next one.

I did that alot at first, ie; underpricing.

As you get more clients, you will feel less pressure to close and then you may charge alot more than I even suggested here.

I think An Opportunity WSO would work great. Lots of people here need a place to start and at least some kind of income.

Monster.com has an opportunity right now to place 14 day ads for only 99.00 and they have print rags too in certain cities if you research it. Thats a good one too. However, after this post you may be approached by a bunch of people who want to work for you anyway, so you may not need an ad. The WF is great for that.

Let me know your TMF user name so I can upgrade you, and "watch this video":

http://www.mediafire.com/?yddohkbsjopj41k

The only bummer is that you cant search by zip code I dont think, but havent tried it.

You can however search by city or county.

Why am I going out of my way to type all of this?

Because you are helping yourself. To those who have more is given, and to those who have not, they lose even what little they have... You are attracting support due to your vibe of helping yourself, more people want to help you!

I also encourage you to lean on Deidra, because she is a champ at this. She makes a sale every single day that shes on the phone and tries to be every day. She was the first customer to "get" the lead gen thing , start closing agencies...and she has valuable experience to learn from, even though she sounds hardcore....obviously you can relate to her if you have gotten this far.

We are here for you. Lets build you a business here Marc. This thread is the world thats your oyster! You have a support group here.

You have been upgraded Marc. Get in there and tear it up man!

Hint: when you type in the "business type", use the suggestions that pop up, you will get a more comprehensive list.

Good luck.

Great thread gang! I've been looking into some offline lead generation as well and this does help set some expectations.

You might want to just invest in the sites John mentioned - I hired I think around 5 people for simple research on Odesk, last month, and had to fire 4 for not even starting the work. I kept one on who did the work quickly, but inefficiently so I'm not sure what your experience would be.

Those aren't bad numbers. I've had as many as 20 telemarketers dialing at a time for me on insurance and if they can generate that many leads that quickly, there might not be a problem.

-Telemarketed leads will have response rates that vary drastically by area and product.
-We've called on the same product using the same script with the same telemarketers and had different results by state/county.
-Agents looking for leads often times are new and/or inexperienced. Unfortunately that leaves them typically expecting more out of a telemarketed lead than is reasonable.
-If you want some scripts that have been effective for generating insurance leads, please feel free to visit freetelemarketingscriptsDOTcom. Those are the scripts we've used and had success with.
-Overseas telemarketers may or may not work. I've had agents do VERY well on leads generated by overseas telemarketers and I've had more than a few stateside telemarketers tank. If you are using overseas telemarketers, the filipinos seem to be the most accent neutral and effective, but you can have some other problems with them.

Hope this helps!

are you looking for telemarketers? I own a call center based in the Philippines. I could help you out. Pm me if interested

Man, I've been dedicating all my free time to finding decent telemarketers. Even gave some friends that needed a job a crack at it. Let's just say they didn't take my conditioning speech to heart and gave up after an hour. Heh, saw that coming.

I'm just telling my current clients to hang tight, but I can tell they're getting antsy. I'm prepared for them to back out and request a refund. If that happens, it happens. I used to think client acquisition was the hard part, and it's not. It's very reassuring to know that I could have a couple clients in literally one day whenever I want. The fulfillment is the hard part. I now know that I did it ass-backwards.

If anyone acts on John's 3rd report, please, have a team of telemarketers ready to go beforehand. I know it's easy to say "Well once I get a few clients I can just find some guys on oDesk" or whatever, because you want to make some cash now. Don't do that. Do it the right way and you'll thank yourself for it.

I'm currently a lead gen telemarketer for an agent, and I've found this discussion very fruitful. Currently, my pay is $8/hour with $4 for each lead sheet I submit and $5 per policy that is written. I would think that a telemarketer that works for a company should be paid in a similar fashion (maybe not the $5 per policy - unless you get a bonus when a policy is written). If you can afford to pay them better, that will work even more...

@ Marc. One quick way to get into profit is to double your lead price, if you are breaking even now and have clients to spare. Especially if your leads are quality, thats one move that can put you into to double your current gross without changing anything else and have you into profit immediately.

Im certainly living proof that you can make more doing it for yourself. So,"Hey You, in that booth"... Dont give up on yourself. That talent you are developing in there can pay off big!

???Question???

A couple years ago before I was injured, between gigs and while going through an aweful divorce I started actually calling on trucking companies for an agent friend of mine who was paying me cash for gathering him leads for selling the transportation insurance. They were big sales and he made great commission off them while I was accepting peanuts.

Accepting such a small amount was fine for me at the time because I really did it to take my mind out of my ass as much as anything else. I had never known of this forum or any others for that matter at the time and doing something totally foreign to me was a nice challenge but being the entrepreneur that I am I was constantly thinking about how I could turn what I was doing into a big business.

Anyways, what kind of pay or fee do you think I should charge per lead if I ever would do that for him again?

I also came up with a plan that I shared with him and another agent/attorney friend of his where I could practically sell insurance without a license. I never did this but they both agreed that it would probably work and could see no problem with it. Of course I would actually need an agent to write the deal and sign but this was basically the plan and pitch.: I would work with several different agents whom combined represented almost every underwriting company there was. I put together a spreadsheet with all the different info that each underwriter needed. I called the motor carrier and asked them if I could save them $1000 or more on their insurance would they be willing to pay me 25% of the savings and I would basically do all their shopping for them with no less than A rated companies... they wouldn't have to answer questions or deal with any high pressure agents. I did talk with a few motor carriers about this concept and they seemed to love the idea. I then would gather all the info and email out to all the different agents I worked with for bids. When the bids came in I would send them out as well so agents always knew what price they had to go back to underwriter with to beat. The agent that ended up winning the bid knew they had to pay me a $100. finders fee. I figured I could actually get paid from both sides and provide a good service to both sides. The only losers in this scenario is the underwriter who's price was bid down (they make too much money anyways and if they weren't making money they would just drop out of the bidding).

I still think this could be a good business model. Any thoughts here?

Any thoughts here?

Yeah i have heard this a few times recently. Seems many biz do not trust/like online leads...no wonder though with most being fraud.

Telephone sales is grunt work. It attracts professionals as well as complete losers. If you want better quality control you need to pay them better, and ideally give them an incentive, not based on leads, but based on them getting a small % of the end deal. Also, advertising for inside sales people, rather than telemarketers will tend to attract a higher quality person. Keep in mind if you paid a pro b2b telemarketing company with a call center of highly trained professionals, you'd be paying close to 2K a month to make roughly 1000 calls a month. And even with that you aren't guaranteed any specific results. I've done a lot of telemarketing in the past. Managers are so quick to blame the callers attitude, etc, when they are calling a list that's been so old and called so many times. You need to based your expected leads generated # on something actually being generated. Not something that had happened, or that only one person is inconsistently achieving.

Read chapter 19 of Dan Kennedy's book, "No BS Sales Success" called
BS Sales Managers Shovel Onto Sales People.

When I was a telemarketer I was one of the best in my office. You're right managers see things differently. That doesn't mean their view is the correct one though.

Of course they don't have the goal of giving you bad leads. However, I have found that many companies are too cheap to get new leads. Instead they hammer the old ones to death, pissing off many of the people on those lists, who have been called so many times, they already know what you are going to say, and hang up before you ever have a chance.

marc.v,

If you are still doing this, I have a proposal for you. In few weeks I am about to create an affiliate program for Insurance leads. I am currently in negotiations with the brokers, but I am expecting a much bigger CPL than $20. Maybe that can help you increase your profit!

Please PM me, as I cannot and I will PM you back as soon as I have the service ready to go.

Thanks!
VV

Marc,

Please contact me, I have some new clients for you.

interesting thread....

Why not combining www and telemarketing in your lead generation? I know it is a different ball game, but it still could help you towards collecting leads that are not currently ready to provide their info - but only a mail. Then you could invite them later if they change their mind... And moreover you can target a bigger market

Cheers

In the Internet crazed world of today, you might think the only way to generate insurance leads is on line. While this is the trend, there are still a few viable ways to generate insurance leads using direct mail, community newspapers and telemarketing.

Let's take a look at three ways to conduct insurance lead generation on line as opposed to mailers, telemarketing or other methods which we will cover in a later post.