Current and Former Salesforce Managers: Who To Recruit?

Hi guys,

This post is directed towards those who have tenure prospecting, hiring, training, and managing sales talent.

I am looking to take the next step in my final expense life insurance career by developing a sales force agency, committed to developing aspiring final expense life insurance agents into financially-successful and well-trained final expense life insurance business owners.

The reason my agency is different from others is how I approach the recruiting process.

Managing a sales force is not my primary goal.

To elaborate on my statement above, I am looking to mentor new final expense agents and develop them over a 4-6 month period of time, then release them as fully capable agents.

The benefits and reasons my agency is unique and superior to others is that:

(a) I am committed to agent development in all regards -- marketing, prospecting, presenting, and client management. I am involved hands-on, first person for the entire time they are partnered with me. This is juxtaposed against what the competition does, which is focuses on mass recruitment first, and pays little respect to proper and comprehensive training.

(b) To make my venture profitable for me, I only require no more than a half-dozen agents to work with. So, instead of being one of several dozen agents to vie for his manager's already spread-out attention, I can dedicate much-needed personal attention to my partners, so as to speed up their learning curve and to get my agents more profitable, more quickly.

(c) I am a self-sufficient, successful agent that actually still produces for a living. Most agency managers don't do shit and haven't sold shit in years. The benefit to the agent is real-world, up-to-date final expense training from an agent actively producing himself.

So, now with the backstory told as briefly as possible (I actually have been working on this post for 90 minutes and have condensed it significantly), where I need some assistance is on who to actually target.

You've got the following targets:

1) Opportunity-Seekers -- I'm envisioning 9-5'ers who want to escape Corporate America. I would pitch "The Dream" (Earn $100,000+ Working 3 Days a Week).

2) Income Supplementers -- I'm thinking of folks who have full-time jobs who are looking supplement their present income. I would pitch "The Dream," but modify it to entice them into my opportunity.

3) People In the Final Expense Opportunity Pipeline. These are people already sold on selling insurance, or may already have their insurance license, understand the investment requirements (need to invest $500+ weekly into lead generation to have a good shot at making six figures) and the training requirements, but are unsure of which agency to go into.

My question to you Salesforce managers is how to and who to preferentially target.

Regarding #3, I will have some direct referrals from the agency I'm associated with, and have some credibility an online community where I convene with other established and aspiring final expense agents. These guys are my ideal prospects, hopefully because they get the need for training, are already well-educated, and I'm betting knowing my prospects, will buy into my pitch of dedicated training.

Number 1 and 2 are the ones I'm wondering about, specifically in how to create a system to find them, screen them, and partner with them.

I like the idea of targeting people with steady, salaried jobs looking to supplement their income, as I'm hoping they'll have the money available to invest into leads, and will like the idea of making a good income without the drudgeries most sales opportunities require (bothering your friends to make sales, and having to cold call).

My approach to finding talent on paper is to utilize Craigslist and classified ads from surrounding communities to push interested prospects into a educational Webinar on the Final Expense Industry and how the opportunity works and what makes it different from the others out there.

I guess at this point I am looking for affirmation on my approach and any general words of advice or constructive criticism on the entire approach to finding sales talent.

I've never seriously managed anybody more than myself, so this is a pretty big step I want to take, and especially appreciate the words of wisdom to those who have actually done it successfully.