Thanks for dropping by............

Hi Insurance Agents,

Welcome to my Blog. I'm excited to be offering tips and ideas that have helped me through the years selling insurance. Here you will find articles, strategies and recommendations on increasing your productivity in the insurance industry.



In the eight years I have worked in the Insurance industry, I have been fortunate to work with many top producers that have shared successful ideas from which I have been able to form some practical strategies.



The tips that I will offer here will keep you increasing productivity and income.



Please check back weekly, as I will be adding articles and tips to increase your bottom line.

Cheers,

Ethan Selph


Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Just starting out? Tips on getting rolling.

Ethan,

Congratulations on doing so well in this business. It gives me hope that I can make this business work for me and my family. I appreciate the information that you are so willing to share with others. I have recently left the construction industry as a cabinet shop owner and got into the insurance business. If you could take the time to answer a question or two for me I would be very grateful.

I have tried to take advantage of a good portion of the tools available including Norvax quote engine and IDA etc… I am religious on trying to stay on top of all of the training available. I want to dot every I and cross every t. However I find myself being apprehensive about jumping in and committing to purchasing leads to get rolling. There is so much for me to learn and I find myself maybe trying to be so prepared that I'm not making the calls that I need to. However I feel that knowledge is power and I want to make sure I do the best that I can with each lead. Is this business more of a numbers game vs. knowing everything there is to know about health insurance? I know it is very important to be knowledgeable about your business but maybe I'm spending way too much time trying to prepare? My income is drying up and either I make it or break it. Could you give me some advice of what I need to focus on and how much time I need to commit to daily to make this business work. Also maybe some advice on lead sources and returning leads.

I really appreciate any help you could give me. I will be in attendance to the team speak training you will be doing on Thursday.

Thank you,

Shane


Dear Shane,

There are a lot of people that start buying leads on a credit card or savings when they start the business. I don't believe that you should bite off more than you chew with leads. On this blog there is a post on when you should stop buying leads which I recommend reading. I don't believe that anyone should go into debt to start a business. There are many ways you can start your business without buying leads. Here are some examples.

1. Contact everyone you know and let them know that you just received information that rates are changing on a lot of plans due to health care reform. You would be happy to give them a free quote which takes about 5 minutes. Rates are already going up and prospects need to lock in a plan now.

2. Get involved in Facebook, Linked in, and other social media networking tools. I would start making a ton of friends and have them recommend you as someone to do business with. You should always start selling in the area that you know the most people.

3. Become a member of your chamber of commerce. Spend $20 and get some business cards. Start swapping business cards and make it a goal to get more business cards every time you attend one of their events. Do your best to really start networking.

4. Contact some health insurance agents that have been around for a while and ask them to allow you to help upgrade their current policies. They are probably receiving about 5% on renewals and if you did a 50/50 split on a 20% commission they would be making 10%. You do all of the work and they get a raise!

Once you have turned a profit start purchasing leads. I would also contact the Department of Insurance in your state to see what is the allowable referral bonus. By getting referrals you should have a pretty good idea on how much time it takes to get one sale; if you are tracking this. At this point you can decide when to start putting a ton of money into leads or maybe you won't have to buy leads at all!

If you are selling online you shouldn't have to know everything to sell a policy. All you need to do is open up the brochure and read off the highlights to them. You do need to allocate so many hours a week to selling health insurance. I wouldn't spend more than 2 hours a week learning the different plans. Most of your time spent should be drumming up new business. There are so many plans and they change all of the time. Accessing the information quickly is more important than memorizing the plans. I hope this helps!

Ethan

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Free Monthly Live Chat

I like your idea of offering a connection through chat. What service are you
utilizing for that?

Thank you,

Dave

Dear Dave,

I have a tech support employee that set this up for me. It is awesome. Whenever there are requirements that need to be filled by the applicant or any other reason that I am trying to get a hold of them this works great! I can build it for you for $95 and then it is free monthly or you can set it up on your own at www.meebo.com. If you are interested in learning more about this email me at ethan@biztart.com. To view my chat line you can go to http://www.applyforhealth.blogspot.com/.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

How do you know how often to email prospects?

Ethan,

Does a fair amount of contact with new leads come as a result of response
from the proposals sent on the 1st autoreponder?

Thank you,

Dave

Dear David,

You don't want to "spam" prospects. An initial email is sufficient the first week along with two calls a day. And then you want to double the time that you send out the auto responders. For example.....


1 day
8 days
16 days
32 days
64 days
128 days
etc

I would definately recommend www.makemycalls.com to call your prospects. I hope this helps!

Ethan

Health Care Reform opens up new markets

In this post I will explain to you how health care reform could open up new markets. Whether you are pro or con health care reform, hopefully you as an agent can find new ways to make money.

1. Medicare reimbursements and services will be brought to a lower lever over the next 7 years. Eventually the Medicare Advantage plans will be replaced by the supplements. With the baby boomers shifting to the supplements, the annual commissions from your medicare supplements should increase.

2. Remember all of those kids and spouses that got declined health insurance last year? Now is the time to contact everyone in your database and let them know that you will take care of them this year and beyond.

3. Your current clients know of those that will be fined for not getting health care. Now is the time to contact all of your customers and ask for referrals. Don't wait for another agent to start contacting them. Call and email them today.

Warning! Some of the people you contact will immediately assume that you are against health care reform. Do not in any way try to argue your point as you will lose the opportunity to inform them of what is really going on and offer them coverage down the road. Also don't send out an email opposing health care reform as you will get a lot of angry feedback. These people have already made up their minds about health care. If you are going to send out an email like this to encourage a pro health care reform approach I would recommend you use a different email address and different campaign. You don't want destroy your database and not be able to help those uninsured get health coverage.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Health Care Reform Email

I have sent out an email to everyone in my database about health care reform. This is a good way to find people that are going to have to get health insurance that don't have it now, get in touch with those people that got declined on their current policy, and people that you haven't touched base with you in a while. It encourages them to call, email, or chat so that you get interaction with customers and prospects. You want to be the one that is educating your prospects. I got my first call within 10 minutes of sending out the emails and have received several interested emails within the first 2 hours. You can send out these types of newsletters from www.constantcontact.com. You will also see some cool reports when you do it such as these. This was within the first hour the email.

SentBouncesSpam
Reports
Opt-
outs
OpensClicksForwards
3/23/2010Mar 23 20104677 5.4%
(253)
0 0.6%
(28)
3.6%
(158)
10.8%
(17)




March 2010

Dear ,


I have contacted you in the past about health insurance and am contacting you again about some of the changes that are taking place in the market. As your friend in the health insurance industry I make it my business to find out what is going on and how it affects the people that I know. This email is an informational email only. I offer my assistance to anyone looking for answers on health care reform. Please contact me with any questions you have.
Changes to health care

As you are probably aware, your state has joined a lawsuit to challenge health care reform. If it is successful, there will probably be little change for you in the industry. If it is unsuccessful, there will be many changes that will affect you. Let me outline a few ways that it could affect you.

1. No one will get rejected for pre-existing conditions.

2. Parents can keep their children on their plan up until 26 years old.

3. Preventative will be covered.

4. You will be fined if you don't have health insurance.

5. There will be no life time maximums. This means that you cannot run out of coverage.

6. The medicare prescription plan will be changed so that eventually there will be no "doughnut hole".

7.
Increases in taxes to offset the cost of Health Care Reform


Please contact me by phone at ######## or my chat line which is ########## to ask questions about how this impacts your family. If you know of anyone that needs health insurance I can offer a $25 gift certificate for referrals.



Sincerely,

Ethan Selph
##########
##########
##########
.


In This Issue
Changes to health care
Predictions and Advice
Election Process

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

What should your conversion rate be?

Total Revenue
I found out that my conversion rate is about 5% over a year period of time. There are insurance agents that get discouraged because they are not closing 20% or more of clients. This chart shows the potential revenue from over 5000 leads with a close ratio of 10% at a 20% commission level with an average of $1000 made on each annual commission. The most important thing to remember is to keep above 5% conversion rate. Keep contacting clients and those not interested once a year and you should never have to buy another lead again. The magic number is 5000 leads in your database.

When can you quit buying leads?

Roadmap 1
This chart shows how many leads you have to purchase to reach the milestone of over 5000 leads in your database. Once you have over 5000 leads then you have enough prospects to contact year after year that you shouldn't need to purchase more leads. By contacting your renewals, not interesteds, and referrals once a year your business will continue to grow.

Monday, March 8, 2010

How much should I spend on leads?

Roadmap 2

The following chart shows how many leads you need to purchase a day to get to the 5000 leads milestone. Once you have 5000 leads in your database, and are converting at least 5% of leads, you have enough revenue and prospects to stop buying leads. I believe that you shouldn't invest anything that you can't afford to lose and that is also true with buying leads.

I feel that if you are not talking and emailing all of your current clients every 6 months because you are "too busy" with other projects then you should probably quit buying leads at that point. Last year I spent over $52,000 on leads and then I realized that I wasn't in a situation where I was getting as many referrals as I could have and renewal sales. I stopped buying leads altogether and focused more on support and "checking in" on clients and my sales never dropped. Getting rid of lead costs is the most exciting part of this business! Now you virtually have no cost to sell health insurance. It was a grand day when I gave myself a $52,000 raise. You decide when you should get rid of lead cost buy there is no reason that you should have to buy leads after 5000 leads.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

What to do years 3,4, and 5 and beyond

Your main goal is to keep clients happy and give them the policy that they want. Your strategic goals should be focused in the following areas to keep you making over 300k a year.

1. Ask for referrals-Average at least one referral per customer per year.

2. Call current clients once every 6 months to "check on things".

3. Call and email clients during renewal time.

4. Costs should be under $1000 a month-no leads need to be purchased.

This should be your game plan from 10 months on

Call clients to review policy at 10th-11th month mark to prepare them for the renewal appointment. This will allow you to:

Get referrals
Help them shop for a better plan
Upgrade/Downgrade plan
Add on ancillaries


When making important decisions on your business it is important to figure out your closing ratio. You cannot calculate a closing ratio for 30 days because sometimes it can take months for someone to finally apply and get approved for coverage. Your closing ratio is performed by how many leads you received in 12 months/how many people are on the books. I am at a 4% closing ratio so don't get discouraged if you're not batting 50%.

Also contact "Not interested" every 11 months.
Everyone else that didn’t go with you last year is fair game to sell this year. This is a perfect time to contact them because they went with someone else but just had a rate increase and their agent hasn't called them yet.


If you don't have time to do these things then you need to cut back on other tasks in your business or hire someone to do this. When I mean cutting back on other tasks that could also mean stop buying leads altogether like I have done.

What should be your goals your first year of business

Get leads into your database
Buy Leads
Referrals
Cover costs
Bookkeeper/accountant to keep track of expenses
Hire someone good to analyze your business every month- don’t spend all of your advances and live frugally

Keep clients around by getting back to clients quickly and resolve issues of clients within 2 hours
Call and email them every 6 months
Remind of rate increase
Ask for referrals
Think long term