What phone system do you use to call your leads?

Hi Ethan,

I am going to market outside my home state for the first time. I know you do this as well in Texas. Do you call out with your Utah number appearing on their caller id or do you use some type of virtual service? What do you recommend?

Thank you,

Dave

Dear Dave,


I always try to call using a local number for my prospects. I used to use Skype but I recently converted over to Vonage because I was spending too much time trying to figure out all of the add on features and it was slowing my computer down. I have one Vonage box with 2 lines included in the service for $14.99 each. I use the Mojosells.com autodialer with both numbers in the caller id. I like to switch it up sometimes if I am having trouble getting a hold of people. I will call from a different number just to get back in touch with them but primarily I use a local number to call my leads. If you end up getting vonage please put me down as the referrer on their website. I would appreciate it.

I recently found out that you can have any type of lead directly imported into the Mojosells.com website for free! They give you an email address that gets uploaded into the system every 90 seconds. I wish I would have known about that when I was buying leads.


Ethan

How do you convert old leads into sales?

Hey Ethan,

My name is Devin and I’m an  Insurance agent in FL. I saw your speak at the Norvax University in Orlando and thought you were excellent. Since then I have been following your blog and implementing some of your strategies along the way with great success. However I was hoping you could give me some additional advice on what to do with some old leads. I have a database built up of approximately 4,000 unsold leads since 2006. I was wondering what would be your best recommendation on how to attack these old leads and convert them into sales. Whether it be put them on a drip email campaign or send them personal post cards etc. I’d really like your personal advice on this matter if you don’t mind and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks so much,

Devin

Dear Devin,

I am glad that you are having success with the information on this blog and my trainings!  In the next few weeks I will be putting some youtube.com videos up on this blog.  Hopefully that will help you sell health insurance as well.

I am not really sure of the age of the unsold leads but regardless of the age I still think that it is important to contact them.  The easiest most cost effective way to contact them is to import all of the contacts into your auto dialing system and spend about 2-3 hours a day at least calling them.  I recommend www.makemycalls.com for this.  The cost is around $150 a month and you would see a huge increase in sales from this. 

If you try to send them an email even through Constant Contact it has to be very slight.  That means an email once a month.  Being labeled as a spammer is very easy if you send out an email all at once to thousands of clients.  Pretty soon you will notice that "no one" is getting "any" emails.  Yes it has happened to me. 

I wouldn't send out a mailer just yet until you are able to track the success of your phone campaign.  Once you have done some tracking then you could forecast some projections based on a 1-2% closing ratio.  That is pretty decent/average for mailers.  If you want a quick easy way to send out some cards I recommend sendoutcards.com.  This is what I use for delinquent accounts, renewals, and thank you cards.  Spend around $150 for the auto dialer and go through the full training session with them and you won't be sorry.  If you do go through www.makemycalls.com please put me down as a referral before purchasing on their website.  I would really appreciate it.

Ethan Selph

What is your closing ratio when selling health insurance?

I really like your information about getting to the 5,000 lead mark into your database as stated in other blog posts.  What percentage of the 5,000 health insurance leads do you have as clients?  I'm assuming those 5,000 are people who have not told you to get lost but would like for you to keep in touch? In other words what are the quality of the 5,000 leads in your data base?

Dear Shane,

  The database that I created took me about 1.5 years to put together.  I have a closing ratio of about 3.5% in selling health insurance.  That is a pretty low ratio but you have to remember I didn't really start doing auto responders or auto dialing until about 11 months ago and I haven't bought any leads since October 2009.  If someone tells me they are not interested in buying health insurance right now I plan on contacting them 11 months from that renewal date.  I always have about 2000 leads in my database that are not interested at a given time.  This low closing ratio should give great hope to those that are aren't closing most of your leads.

What do you do when a client you sold health insurance to claims there was a billing issue?

1.  Verify the information by having them fax you a copy of their bank statement over to you.  Over half of clients figure things out without you having to go any further.  I can't begin to tell you how many times the client has been wrong.

2.  Review the companies billing procedures to make sure that you didn't make any mistakes in signing the client up according to their billing policies. 

3.  Contact the insurance company if there has been a mistake.

4.  Remember that it is never worth hurting or ruining a relationship because of small mistakes.  Everyone knows that everyone has made a mistake in their life and that everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.  The way to not make very many mistakes is to never assume anything until you have all of the facts.  Assure the client that you will resolve the issues in a timely matter and that this is of the highest priority for you. 

5.  Keep the client posted of any progress good or bad from the insurance company.    Let them know that we don't make any assumptions about anything.  EVERY insurance company has made a billing mistake and I guarantee you this client has had other billing issues with other companies outside of the health insurance industry where there was a billing mistake. 

6.  Remain calm during this whole process.  If they notice you getting frustrated they too will get even more frustrated as this is often a way to test your ability to deal with stress.  If they see you getting frustrated or taking sides with you on the phone by bad mouthing the insurance company, before getting documentation of the mistake, then they will discredit you for encouraging them to get the policy.

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

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/.

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