Starting Off in Life Insurance Sales - Cold Prospecting

Being in sales and business building for most of my career I understand the concept of cold prospecting. I've done my share of knocking doors and getting to know people.

The most expensive part of starting off your career in life insurance sales is developing a client base.
Often a new sales recruit will look at a seasoned and successful life insurance agents and enviously comment to them self, "I wish I had their client list".

I've been at the start of a sales process where I scratch my head and say, "where do I start" looking for prospects.
I have then gone out, checked out a thousand places to figure out who was buying my product or service. All the while knowing that I'm going to strike out with a high percentage of the people and companies that I contact.

The benefit to cold prospecting is that there isn't any up front cash required. I've been able to set up businesses with little or no cash by taking the time to do cold prospecting. I leveraged my time and enthusiasm. Thus I can see the appeal to cash short - life insurance agents who are just starting off in their careers.

Most times the people who have a good reputation and a large client base are those who have put in the agonizing hours working their prospects. As time has passed they've gotten better at getting to know people and developing word of mouth. But in the beginning they've had to do the up front work.

I've found that people who like to take short cuts are those who are impatient and often quit because they don't get quick sales results.
In any type of sales, you need to go the distance to learn the skills required to stay in business. Many times you learn valuable lessons after you've failed several times at what you're doing.

Bottom line, it takes time to learn the sales trade.

THE QUESTION: Should you take all that time to learn to cold prospect or to deal directly with life insurance leads??

Life insurance leads - What does it take to create them?

If you're a life insurance agent and are purchasing website generated life insurance leads, you may wonder what it takes to manufacture a good quality life insurance lead. It seems pretty easy if you get a stream of life insurance leads emailed to you every day. You might wonder if there is any system or method in place to generate these leads.

The life insurance lead supplier needs to know and practice the following:

1. How to build a websites
   The lead supplier needs to know how to build sophisticated websites. They're not basic websites. They have to be interactive and have testing and tracking capabilities.
   It's important to track visitors and their habits when they come to a life insurance quote website. It's important to know the pages their visiting, the links they're clicking and ultimately the path that's leading them to filling out the life insurance quote form.
   There is some architecture and engineering that needs to be built in to capture these subtlety's.
   
   
2. Tracking traffic and developing statistics.
   This probably the most difficult part, but also the part that makes a life insurance lead provider competitive.
   The better control you have over your visitors behavior the more you product (leads) you can generate. It's important to know what works and what doesn't work. Tracking traffic is the way to do that.
   
   
3. Organic and PPC internet marketing
   The lead supplier needs to know about Organic ( FREE ) and PPC ( PAID ) search engine marketing. The idea is to get your website in front of people who are interested in getting more information about life insurance leads. The challenge is that you've usually got a thousand other sites who are competing for these interested visitors. The lead supplier then has to be skilled in getting his site to the top of the search engine regular listings and sponsored listings. These are both complex processes for which new industries are emerging.
   
   
4. Keeping production and marketing costs in line in order to make a profit.
   Life insurance lead suppliers are businesses. They've got their expenses like every other businesses. Some of their expenses include:
   
   • Website planning & building
     
   • Website maintenance and monitoring
     
   • Online Marketing costs,
     
   • Lead management and Administration
     
   • Sales Costs
     
   • Lead return costs
   
   
   Before they can sell their leads to life insurance agents, the lead supplier needs to know that their costs are inline and that they are making a health profit.

I've just touched the basics in this article. If you've ever thought that generating life insurance leads is easy, IT'S NOT! It's a process that takes alot of time and experience.

6 Benefits of buying life insurance leads vs Cold Prospecting

The problems of cold prospecting are solved by using life insurance leads

1. Spend time building cold prospect lists
Life insurance leads save you the time of cultivating and building cold sales lists. Instead of time spent building the list, you could be talking to interested prospects

2. Spend time learning to prospect cold lists
Life insurance leads save you the time of learning the skillset of talking to cold prospects. You can skip that and talk to people who want to purchase life insurance right away.

3. Waste time talking to people to figure out if they're interested
Life insurance leads save you the time of talking to a high percentage of people who are not interested in life insurance. Your time is valuable. You make less money per sale if you have to spend alot of time finding the right prospect.

4. Close a low percentage of cold prospects
Life insurance leads allow you to close a much higher percentage of prospects. If you've sold life insurance for any amount of time, you know that you've got to talk to many cold prospects before you get to the ones that are interested in buying. It's frustrating to hear the word "NO" that often.

5. Cold prospects take months to warm up
Life insurance leads allow you to get in touch with prospects who are interested now. This saves you months of warming up cold prospects and taking them through the whole sales process.

6. It's a skill to prospect cold lists
Working life insurance leads save you the time to build "cold prospecting skills". These cold prospecting skills could take months or years to learn. Working with interested people by passes this process altogether.

There are many reasons for using life insurance leads that solve the issues of cold prospecting. The most important thing to remember is that buy using lead generated marketing, you save your time and your money and get better results.


See illustration of Cold Prospecting vs. Purchasing Leads Scenario

You Don't Need to Spend More Money to Make More Money From Your Existing Database
by Mac McIntosh

While the expression above can be true in some situations, smart companies are able to expand income without shelling out more cash. To do this, these companies are working with leads that are already 'hot.'

As an alternative to spending the large sums necessary for another lead-generation project, a look through the existing database can really create an increase in value of the info which is already there. Your company probably already has a list of leads from past campaigns which are 'active,' that is, someone responded or demonstrated interest in come way. But, for some reason they didn't go through with it, and decided not to continue through the process and make a purchase at that time. As a result, these 'hot' leads are simply sitting there idle in the database, waiting for a smart marketer to re-establish contact with them. Whether this smart marketer is someone from your company or one of your competitors is a completely other matter.

It's really too bad that most companies which provide goods and services spend almost 95% of the communications and marketing budget on new lead generation and improving company profile. That leaves us with only 5% of these budgets allocated to turning 'hot' prospects into new sales. This is not the right way to go.

good sales lead tools - lead creation

Our company assisted a business by raising its annual sales figures by more than 40%, all without them having to spend more on marketing. How did we do this? Well, by making key recommendations. We started by maximizing the value of the existing budget, choosing specific advertising, direct mail, public relations, database marketing and Internet marketing partners - for the best ROI. Secondly, the savings freed up by these efforts were reallocated toward fostering valuable relationships with the hot leads in the old database.

We made the suggestion that the business concentrate on companies that purchased in the past, but not recently. Sometimes all that is needed it a little follow-up to get these customers back. At times in can be smart to thank these people for their purchase, asking if there is some type of concern which needs to be addressed in order to bring them back. Tell them you notice they haven't bought recently; is there a problem which can be resolved? Is there some type of incentive required for them to come back? By offering a price reduction to repeat customers a company may setting themselves apart from the others and bringing in the bulk of the business.

sales leads - lead generation tools

We had success nurturing these hot leads by using the methods above. Sometimes it's just clear communication with these leads which can develop the potential to its maximum. Webinars, email contact, white papers, news letters, and reports are all good ways to develop and maintain good contact until your leads are ready to buy. The process takes time, but the end result is worth it - more revenue for your company and an increasing array of strong B2B relations.

In the case of the company we helped with nurturing leads, the sales representatives and staff now use much more of their resources on the quality leads with purchase-ready prospects. These prospects are already sold on the company in some ways, making them the best candidates for the next generation of ongoing customers.


About the Author

Mac McIntosh is a sales lead expert. Visit: http://www.sales-lead-experts.com for more info.

Sales Leads - The power, and danger, of your database
by Troy White

One of my clients is a land developer in an executive lake front community. The homes are $750,000 ' $1.5 Million dollar custom built beauties.

We were brought in to "be" their marketing department. To most outsiders, our firm looks like we are actually employees.

The reason we were brought in was their past marketing manager.

She got fired.

For a VERY good reason.

This was a person who acted as if the company was her own, and as if she was not accountable at all for marketing funds.

When I first started digging around, it was very evident that this person loved to spend the companies' money ' without any thought to results.

sales leads - lead generation

Ads being run in newspapers and magazines that DEFINITELY did not target the right demographics.

Radio spots being run on stations that 18 year old skateboarders listen to (how many of them do you think will buy a million dollar home?)

A website that looks pretty but is seriously lacking good quality content. The one VERY good thing they have on the site is a form to fill out for more information...but this is part of the big problem.

People were filling this form out ' and NEVER hearing back from anyone.

I tried to find all their databases.

"Data what?"

database sales leads - lead generation

No one had a clue on where the databases were or even what they were.

After a month I managed to compile a list of ~ 2,000 interested prospects that had either been to the website and filled out the form attended an event phoned in or visited the information centre or had expressed some form of interest at one point.

Remember ' these are people who have not heard a word back from the developer ' some of them filled the form out a year or more ago!

First thing I did was send an apology letter to everyone on the database. Imagine the shock the staff had when I told them we have to apologize for being so tardy (and downright dumb) about lack of follow up.

Then I invited them all to 2 parties coming up.

Then I sent an email as well ' giving more information and reasons to attend.

The first was a VIP party held on Wed night. It turned out fabulous! We had 80-100 people show up and were very happy to hear from us and see all the progress being made. We served them top quality wine, cheeses, and bread. We gave them leather bound information packages with a ton of content and information inside. We gave out prizes. We had a Harley on display alongside a 1967 Mustang.

We treated them special.

And they ate it up.

The problem though is the responses I got back from the email list.

People replied back saying they waited and waited ' but never heard back and ended up buying elsewhere. At least 10 of those responses (let's see now ' 10 people x $1,000,000 homes = $10,000,000 down the drain!).

People called me names ' some nasty.

Overall, people were very thankful.

Which leads me to the whole point of this article...

You MUST collect leads from interested party but even more important is you MUST follow up with them. If people express their interest ' the job is at least 50% done. Then it is in effective follow up to close the deal.

This company neglected this database ' and even worse, neglected these peoples trust.

It will be interesting to see what we can do with some effective follow up.

From what I have seen so far ' simple letters and emails will help sell million dollar home sales. Of course it will take more than just that ' but most people were very happy to get emails and print letters from us.

I will keep you updated on the progress of this project ' it is a fun one.

Remember, keep a database ' and follow up with them! Invite them to special events. Give them gifts. Treat them like gold. And follow up with them again, and again, and again.

You are criminally neglecting these people if you take their names and do nothing with them.

The sad part?

This client is much like 95% of the companies out there in existence today.

Which is why it doesn't take much to stand out from the crowd as people are sadly quite used to this kind of neglect?

Be the one that does pay attention.

And be the one who shows them that you DO care about their business.

PS ' If you are looking for investment properties or are looking for one of the best communities to live in ' let me know! In the first 24 months, the lots in this community have gone up 250% in value.

The one person who lives there now has tripled his money in less than 2 years! Calgary (where I live) is a SCREAMING hot real estate market right now ' average home prices are going up at 10% a month right now. And this is the ONLY natural lake front community being built ' or even available right now. Let me know if you want more information.
About the Author

Troy White, The Marketing Results Mentor and Expert Copywriter helps clients achieve HUGE growth surges in their business in very short periods of time. If you're an entrepreneur in need of quick cash flow surges ' here is the quick-hit solution to put money in your bank.... The Wild West Wealth Summit! Make sure you visit http://www.WildWestWealth.com or sign up for the Free Cash Flow Surge Newsletter at http://www.CashFlowSurges.com

What does lead generation mean
by Groshan Fabiola

What does lead generation mean, who could take advantage of it and how? This article aims to discuss the concept of lead generation and the ways an insurance broker could use it in order to get as many deals as possible.

Whether internet has or has not changed our lives it is not a question anymore; it has for sure influenced each and every part of our lives, from communications to the way we do business. New concepts arose, such as instant communication or online marketing. Major companies but also small firms have seen and grasped the opportunity of enlarging their client portfolio by using the World Wide Web. The insurance market hasn't remained passive at all those changes, seeking, at its turn, new ways to expand. Internet lead generation companies seem to be the answer for any insurance broker who is looking for new possible clients. On the other hand, there are a lot of insurance brokers to say that Internet lead generation companies are not the best way to go, since they are not as sure as one would think.

life insurance leads � sales leads � prospecting leads

The reality is that none of the above presented sides of the same fact are wrong. When aiming to find a credible company to offer you insurance leads, there are several things you should pay attention to. As there are a lot of such companies on the market nowadays, the first thing you should check is whether the company you want to buy leads from has some kind of experience in the field of lead generation. In the same time, it is not less true that there area lot of Internet lead generation companies that are not quite that trustworthy, since they resort to questionable marketing techniques, thus lowering the quality of the leads you wish to buy.

Insurance leads have prices varying from 5 to 30 dollars, depending upon the type of the lead (annuity, life insurance and so on) and on their exclusiveness. The freshness of a lead is what guarantees its efficiency, so the first thing one should look into is whether the company has made it a practice from selling the same leads to different brokers. A good hint on the reliability of an Internet lead generation company is the fact that a dependable one will guarantee you a refund of your money in case you should purchase a bad lead from them.

If you are not convinced that buying those leads from a company is safe enough, but you still consider that good leads are to be found using the internet, you could think about creating a lead generation web site of your own. The principle is pretty simple. Just find out what keywords are used more often by people searching for insurance (in the area you live) and try to build up pages that contain that specific keyword. For example, if you live in the area of New York and find out that people search for 'New York insurance', you should build up a page containing this specific expression. Still, a good lead generation web page is not enough; as each page will only be visited a couple of times, it is most likely to produce but only few leads, so you'll need to build up many more pages containing different keywords.

Always remember that people dislike to be forced into buying something, so it would be advisable to gain the trust of the visitor by posting high quality information. This way, it is possible that someone will use your lead generation web site in order to ask for future information on the topic, thus helping you to gather as many fresh leads as possible.
About the Author

For more resources about mortgage lead company or even about exclusive mortgage leads and especially about email marketing solution please review these links.

life insurance leads
sales leads
prospecting leads

The Pros And Cons Of Private Property Sales
by P Green

A small number of people are bypassing estate agents and taking on the job of selling their home themselves.

It is still a small number - some people estimate that nine out of ten homes sold in the UK are still handled by estate agents.

So is putting on a private property sale something you should look at, or should you continue to place your trust in a professional agent?

We examine the pros and cons of doing a private property deal.

The main advantage is obvious: you save on estate agents' fees. These are normally a percentage of the sale price that is taken by the agent when the house sells.

You can also take full control of the process of selling. You don't have to wait to see how your house is being marketed or wonder how inquiries are going. It's all down to you when you're the one doing the selling.

It's also possible that by handling the property yourself, you can speed up the process, as there will be fewer people involved.

sales leads - qualified sales leads

So those are the advantages, and the main one it seems is saving the commission. But if you examine what an agent does to actually earn that fee, you realize the expertise they bring to your private property sale.

First of all, an estate agent is there to value your property. It's not unusual for people to get three or four valuations from different agents to assess how much they will get for their home on the open market.

Agents base valuations on how much other houses in the area have sold for, taking into account the differences on your property.

It's not always sensible just to plump for the highest quote, and an experienced agent will tell you why. If you overprice your house you may find inquiries to be sluggish - the market soon spots when the price is wrong. And many agents know that once you've set a price that's too high, even dropping it won't attract as many potential buyers as getting the price right in the first place.

Having a good agent with strong local knowledge will stop you making a pricing mistake.

prospecting leads - quality prospecting leads

An agent will also know how to market a property efficiently and cost-effectively. It's something they do day in, day out. Good agents have the ability to get houses onto powerful online property portals with huge levels of traffic. This is good for you as more website traffic should turn into inquiries.

There are plenty of private property websites, but few can rival the main property websites for the number and variety of homes.

Offline, the power of an agent's High Street shop window has yet to diminish. Displaying properties in the window is a strong source of leads for agents. We all like to browse properties for sale now and again, and a shopping trip is a convenient time to do it.

Plus think about people who are planning to move to an area they don't know. After looking for houses on the major property portals, they will visit the area and look round the agents' shops to find property. This is a source of potential buyers you'd struggle to tap into on your own.

Another thing an agent does that no private property site can do is find potential buyers who are ready to move straight away. If an agent has sold a property similar to yours, they may have had 15 inquiries - meaning they already know 14 people who are still looking for a house!

Of course your agent will also handle cold inquiries and qualify people before bringing them to see your house. When you're doing the sale yourself, you'll have to sort out the time wasters from the genuine buyers.

Finally, when an offer is made, the agent will continue to earn their fee by acting as the middleman between you and the buyer. Many agents are trained in negotiating, and as they are not emotionally involved, can help to ensure you get the highest price. When you're selling it yourself, the temptation is there to take the first offer and run.
About the Author

For further information on how to find private property, please visit http://www.propertytoday.co.uk

Sell More Life Insurance by Being a Good Listener
by Dean Cipriano

There are great benefits in being a good listener. In fact, this ability can add big dollars to your income instantly.

Good listening skills will enable you to close far more cases than you ever have before. The sad thing is most life insurance agents lack these skills. Major U.S. corporations invest huge sums of money each year to train their personnel to enhance their listening skills.

We've all experienced this at one time or another; we give someone direct, specific instructions but somehow they only catch bits and pieces.

It's Not Just Life Insurance Agents...It's Everyone!

I recall even back in elementary school, the teacher would line all the students up and have them pass a secret from person to person. By the time the secret got to the last student, the message was totally different. I used to think someone intentionally changed the story, but I have since come to realize that people in general just don't listen.

Some people simply don't have the know-how to listen, others that have the skill to listen often don't.

Some of the reasons people don't listen are that they're preoccupied with other thoughts, they're in a hurry, they're too tired or they are simply unable to focus their attention.

How Can a Life Insurance Agent Convert More Leads by Listening?

In selling life insurance, you should listen to acquire useful information. Not just to be polite, build rapport or to flatter your prospect or client... although, these are beneficial side effects of being a good listener.

There's nothing more flattering and compelling to a person than to have someone's total focus and undivided attention.

Ya see, if you quietly listen to your clients, and even your newer life insurance leads, they will tell you exactly what you want to hear... "What it will take to sell them."

They will tell you what it will take to make them happy and "What they want." And after all, isn't that the secret to successfully selling life insurance... "Providing what people want." The more you listen, the more people will confide in you and trust you.

You will be surprised how often people will give you what you need to convert this lead into a sale, if you are ready and willing to receive it... and recognize it when you get it.
About the Author

http://www.milliondollarleads.com/about-dean-cipriano.php Dean Cipriano is the founder and president of Insurance Selling Systems. Dean is a http://www.milliondollarleads.com life lead generation expert and has helped thousands of agents get more http://www.milliondollarleads.com/get-free-life-insurance-leads.php" life insurance leadsthen they ever though possible.

Insurance Agent Marketing - Creating a Sustainable Lead Generation Pool by Craig Lutz-Priefert

Successful producers know that quality, local insurance leads are vital to ongoing success.

Funny how the pen that writes up an order for new business is always tethered to the phone.

And today that phone is tied more and more to the internet.

The internet is rapidly changing. Insurance agents thirsting for relevant insurance leads need a competitive advantage. While a competitive advantage based on paying for every lead on a per lead basis can be effective, it means you are tied to:

1. Your own cost outlay (and budget) for each and every lead

2. The number of leads any given vendor can supply.

But, an alternate strategy for successful insurance agency marketing exists. No, not alternate--parallel. No insurance agent carries just one line; it would cripple the agency's income. Multiple lines mean multiple chances to connect with customers.

Lead generation should work the same way. Your insurance marketing efforts should combine more than one tactic to put you in front of your customers.

And this is where search marketing comes in. Local search.

A recent stat shows that Google will soon account for 30% of all online advertising. Why? Because companies will pay good money to be in front of the right prospective client at the right time. And, they'll pay even more money to get in front of that prospect with the right message at the magic moment in time.

That's what you can do with successful search marketing It's not easy, but it can be sustainable. Unlike pay per lead, a strong natural search campaign, coupled with thoughtfully placed paid search efforts can send your agency sales soaring.

Search can really be your best referrer.
About the Author

Craig Lutz-Priefert is Vice President of an insurance lead generation firm. MorePolicies.com provides insurance marketing services for local insurance agents MorePolicies.com also provides quality natural insurance leads and agent-engineered websites.