For instance, new homeowners are always in the market for insurance and often other insurance policies relating to their new purchase. New homeowners are easy to find as the information is public and easily accessible. A simple Google search for new homeowners in your area should deliver results. Additionally, you can request this type of information when you purchase leads from a lead generation company.

Furthermore, you should periodically revisit your company books and recheck all your existing customers, as they tend to be a good source of repeat business. Also, existing customers may bring in new customers in the form of their friends and family members.

While auditing your books look for old customers that can be targeted with other insurance policies. Identify milestone life events, in your files. These can include: the birth of a child or grandchild, milestone birthdays (like turning 65), new vehicles purchases, the anniversary of a policy or even a change of employment, etc.

All of this information is available at your fingertips. With careful research and due diligence you can obtain good results.

Let’s say you buy insurance leads from a lead generation company and you like how they work. You like the higher rate of conversions and the fact the leads are pre-qualified. It’s a nice way to do business – but – you feel like you are missing out on the person one-on-one leads you source yourself. You want to get out and meet people face-to- face.

That’s easy enough with a bit of creative thinking. For instance, new homeowners are always in the market for insurance and often other insurance products relating to their new purchase, such as life insurance. New homeowners can always be found online by using Google for your area and searching for new homeowners in your area. Or you can specify this is the traffic you want when you buy leads from a lead generation company.

Revisit your company books and check and recheck all your existing customers, as they tend to be a good source of repeat business in addition to bringing in new customers. For instance check the files for milestone events such as the birth of a child or grandchild, milestone birthdays (like turning 65), new vehicles added to the family, the anniversary of a policy or even a change of employment.

All that information is at your fingertips in your filing cabinet. Just mine it with diligence and see what good results you get.

2. Love buying from a lead generation company but want to also try other things

If you love your leads from your lead generation company, but want to try other methods of finding leads on your own, why not consider mail back newspaper inserts? They are not that expensive and when combined with purchased leads, may save you marketing dollars.

Mail back cards are small, postage paid postcards that people can simply fill out and drop in the mail. Some people prefer making contact with an insurance agent that way rather than receiving a phone call. It also gives them the control to contact you instead of having you contact them when they may not be ready to buy insurance – yet.

One other source of leads that you may be able to take advantage of is engagement/marriage notices published in your local newspaper. Many newly weds need home insurance, life insurance, car insurance and other types of policies, including health insurance for the new family.

Simply being innovative in finding new leads and combining them with purchased leads is bound to give you a solid customer base to grow your agency and help people find the right insurance for their needs.

3. Want more leads? Even old ones may be worth working

While you’re on a roll with your creative lead sourcing efforts, why not consider getting old leads from another insurance agency that may be going out of business? Find out if they have old leads you could buy.

It would be worth the investment of your marketing dollars because those leads may not have been worked, may have been abandoned just before they made a decision to buy or are fairly recent and have not been worked at all.

Even old leads may pay off because even though they might have been contacted once or twice before a few months or more ago, they may still be interested in buying insurance. A new agent contacting them and spending chat time with them may well result in a conversion. Never turn your back on a creative lead source if you enjoy working all the angles to get your agency rolling and a force to be reckoned with in the long haul.

4. Insurance websites are crucial tools for lead generation

Let’s face it. Getting walk-in traffic to an insurance agency is a difficult task, but it’s even harder to get people to make an appointment to come and see you if your website is as old as the dinosaurs or messy and confusing. You want a potential customer to walk in the door and be impressed with your online presence, your social media skills, your sharp and precise explanations about insurance terms on your agency website and your professional approach to doing business.

If you don’t ensure your website is up-to-date, has fresh information, a compelling presence, and looks sharp and ready to do business in a highly professional manner, people are not going to even consider asking you for a quote, never mind call to ask questions. We can’t say this often enough, your website is not just a placeholder on the Internet. It is who “you” are, how you do business, a reflection of you and how you run your agency.

Your website is not just about your business, it is also about you. It is you, the personal you, that is selling insurance. If people don’t like what they see on the website and don’t get a good feeling about the business or you as an agent, they are not going to buy. It’s just that simple.

Tend to business in all the ways that it counts and that includes a striking online presence that says you mean business. And if your website needs resuscitation, get a new one and do it up right.

5. Partial to cold calling or meeting people and talking shop?

Some insurance agents like cold calling and meeting others to talk about insurance. Selling is a social endeavor in many ways and whatever seems to work the best for you when sourcing leads, go with it. There is no absolutely right way or wrong way to work leads, just so long as they are worked sincerely, with enthusiasm, and with the goal of finding the best insurance policy for a client.

What’s your best idea to meet others and talk about insurance? Be creative and try setting up a quote table at a large company – in their breakroom or cafeteria. You’d need permission to do so, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Ask to set up a quote table and make it crystal clear you are not pushing anything, but simply offering to provide an insurance quote to anyone who may be interested.

Have a sign on your table that says something like having a good insurance policy can save you money, or free quotes to anyone interested in checking out how to protect their family in case something happens. Table traffic based on curiosity provides you with many opportunities to engage a potential customer. It’s worth a try and you lose nothing by being there.

Cheap tools and insurance leads have a lot in common. If you buy cheap leads, that is precisely what you get – chewed up leads that have already been worked by up to seven other agents. A waste of your time and definitely a waste of good marketing money. Focus your spending on the good stuff, the exclusive to you only leads that have a high conversion rate because they are pre-screened and pre-qualified.

True enough, exclusive high quality leads are a bit more expensive, but they are worth the investment. It’s like another old saying that rings true: “You have to spend money to make money.” Buy the best in leads; get the best in consistent customer conversions. Is it worth paying more? Yes. Your agency’s bottom line and your sales record definitely reflect what high quality leads can do for your sales track record.

Here’s another way to also look at it. You are in business to makes sales, make a living and help others. The only way to accomplish that is to get the best leads possible. Leads that you know are going to convert, either fairly quickly or within a six to eight week time frame. If you work those pre-qualified leads like a trooper, you get the results you want – quickly. Why waste time sitting on the phone chasing someone who has already spoken to numerous other agents? Go for the gold to get the gold. It’s just that simple.

The post Looking for Cheap Insurance Leads? You Get What You Pay For first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.]]> http://www.seonewswire.net/2016/09/the-success-of-your-insurance-agency-is-100-percent-reliant-on-you/ Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:00:58 +0000 http://www.seonewswire.net/2016/09/the-success-of-your-insurance-agency-is-100-percent-reliant-on-you/ Even though you may be buying quality leads from a lead generation company, leads alone do not sell the product. The agent buying the leads is responsible for working those leads promptly, enthusiastically, and confidently. Quality leads only open the…

Whether you are just starting out selling insurance or are an old hand at selling policies, you have likely tried the delicate art of cold calling. It is not for everyone and many agents would rather not have to deal with picking up the phone and calling complete strangers.

Since the advent of the computer, social media and other new innovations, including insurance lead generation, you no longer need to cold call. However, you still need to be a decent phone marketer because in reality, calling leads is still a form of cold calling that just happens to include a name, address, phone number and some other possibly useful information to initiate a chat.

How to succeed with phone marketing is a bit of an art, but it is one that can indeed be mastered with a bit of work. The first thing you need to have in your toolbox is the belief that calling leads is going to work. If you go into it with the attitude that it’s going to fail, that you’re going to be nervous and blow it and no one is going to buy anything from you then that is precisely what is going to happen.

Yes, it’s true, what you think, you manifest into reality because that is the kind of energy you send out. Put another way, “belief” is a real thing and it must be a part of your attitude to succeed. Without belief, phone-marketing accomplishments, even with solid leads that have requested information, your success may not manifest itself.

Always be wary of the first excited rush you get when you have new leads to call and people to connect with to talk about insurance. You need to have the mindset that working leads is a long-term, repetitive task, because that is how you grow your agency. It is not something you do just one day a month. Phone marketing and calling insurance leads needs to become a habit that becomes a part of your every day business life.

Run into glitches when calling? Not surprising. Everyone you are going to call is going to react in a different manner. Even if they asked for information about insurance, they may be rude, hang up, say they changed their minds or they do not want to buy right now. What do you do? Tweak your calling routine a little bit each time you run into a “situation.” Keep track of what works and what does not. Be prepared for just about anything to happen because leads are anything but predictable.

Insurance leads “are” your job. Do them often, with diligence, care and enthusiasm. A job you enjoy and work hard at is a job that leads to success.

When new insurance agents get out on their own and have a chance to prove to themselves and the world that they have a good product that everyone wants, they’re bound to make a few blunders. Totally understandable, but completely avoidable.

When you have finished training, don’t rush out and do everything all at once and don’t order as many leads as you can and expect to get through every last one of them in a hurry. Life just does not work that way. Take your time. Learn as you go. Learn from those who have gone before you and learn that calling leads is an art and not an automatic sale for every call. Learn also that despite being told you can make sales doing cold calls, this is a practice that is best left to later in your career and only if you are so inclined to try it. Many are not, and rightfully so.

Cold calls give even seasoned insurance agents some serious pause for thought for the very simple reason that there is zero information for the agent to establish a rapport with the person on the other end of the phone line. Using leads from a reputable lead generation company is a wise move when first starting out because they are pre-screened and pre-qualified. You have basic information to work with as a starting point, such as what kind of insurance they may be looking for, where they live, their age and possibly what they do for a living.

Calling someone cold turkey does not offer you even a faint snapshot of who you may be dealing with on the other end of the phone. So, to avoid the pitfalls of calling leads too fast and blowing them off due to inexperience or a lack of understanding on how to properly work leads. go slow. Learn what you need to know from others. Try it. Then learn something new and try it. Never try calling leads without having some training under your belt and a good mentor who has “been there, done that”.

Being new to calling insurance leads is only a disadvantage and may cost you more money and time than you thought if you do not learn as you go and take care doing it. This is your career. Do it the right way for a long-lived and rewarding one.

What do you do with prospects when you were only able to leave a message on an answering machine? You have not spoken to them personally, so what kind of approach would work to stay connected with them? Better yet is the question: Did you leave a message? You may or may not be surprised to learn that many insurance agents in the process of calling leads do not leave a message when they encounter an answering service.

Sometimes there may be a good reason for not leaving a message, say for instance the agent has a bad cold or was interrupted by another call or staff member. However, if you do not leave a message, it is the same thing as not having made the call in the first place. No gain. Waste of time. No follow up. No sale. No connection. Not a particularly good use of dialing time either.

Here’s a good rule of thumb for those pesky answering machines: always, always leave a message no matter how much you may not like talking to a machine. The person obviously wants to hear from you or they would not have a machine on the line to capture calls in the first place. Hang ups are the most annoying thing in the world next to telemarketers. No, you are not a telemarketer if you are calling leads. Leads are individuals who asked for someone to call them about insurance.

Listen to the message. Leave your name and contact numbers. Mention you have the information they wanted and you would like to find out if there is anything else you may help them with while discussing their insurance needs. Do not leave your website url because you want to speak to them, not send them to a website. Sending them to a website means you do not know what they want or need. You can only uncover that information by speaking to them directly.

Now that you have left a message, what’s next for follow up?

If you have their email information, send them an email letting them know you are trying to call them. Let them know you would be happy to help them with their insurance needs and would be pleased to meet with them at their convenience. Yes, it’s true. There are times this approach backfires. That is something that comes with the job.

Just do the best you can with the leads you purchased from an reputable online lead generation company, one that provides quality leads with a high rate of conversion. A significant portion of those types of leads are going to convert either when you first make contact, or later down the road, provided you make certain to stay in touch.

What’s the big secret to sales success?

The big secret to sales success is maintain a relationship with your leads and follow up, follow up and follow up. It’s no mystery that diligence wins the day and the sale.

Depending on what geographic area you asked for when you purchased your insurance leads from an online lead generation company, you may face the prospect of leads being in different times zones. Make sure you sort your leads into various time zones and pay attention to time differences. The last thing you want to do is call a Florida lead from California at what may be 9p.m. your time, but midnight in Florida.

Sort first, call later and later

All leads should be sorted before working on them and what criteria you use is up to, as you are the one working them. In general though, begin with dividing the names into time zones. Choose your calling hours for the respective time zones: PST, MST, CST and EST. Also pay attention to whether or not a particular time zone follows Daylight Savings.

Let’s say you want to call between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the lead’s time zone. You can find out time zone differences by checking them online. It would be helpful to keep this process as organized as possible and have a tabbed divider for each zone. It’s far easier to keep track of the leads you have called, where they are and what they said in one place than to toss them all into one working pile and try to guess who said what later. In keeping with being organized, start with the time zone you live in. Once you get closer to your designated shut down time in your time zone, you can begin calling in others. It’s simply a matter of determining who to call next based on your organized tabs. Using this method to extend your calling day and the number of leads you are able to reach has the potential to be very profitable in terms of conversions.

Remember, calling leads is a relationship marketing process

You’re selling insurance. You’re calling leads. You’re wanting to make as many sales as you can to grow your business. You trash leads that do not cooperate and move on, right? Wrong. No matter what kind of sales you are in, whether you are selling insurance or cars, website design or widgets, all marketing is relationship based. You are not just selling a product. You are selling yourself. That is why it’s called relationship marketing. Building an insurance business can only be done by cultivating relationships that are mutually beneficial. Every agent, even those working with pre-screened, pre-qualified leads is going to run into someone who does not want insurance, even if they wanted information. That’s life. And, when they say no, they may mean No, not right now. Do not trash them. Keep the information and check back later. Things change day-to-day for all of us. The same observation is applicable for a lead that wants insurance quotes one day, but not two days later. Respect that decision and the process. Maintain a good relationship with those who decline insurance. It may pay off later.

The thing to remember when calling leads is that you are running a business and in order to keep running it successfully, you need to make your calls and convert those leads. Leaving hot leads in your mailbox for a couple of days diminishes the chances of a sale and increases the chances that the prospective customer thinks no one is going to call.

You need to be very organized when you prepare to make calls to insurance leads. Have everything right at your fingertips: your script, any sales literature pertaining to special policies, Medicare information if you specialize in Medical supplements, information on the latest trends in the insurance market that may affect a consumer, a ready smile and a drive to succeed. Yes, you do smile when you are on the phone. It’s infectious and can be hear by your potential customer.

Everyone has bad days, but leave those angry feelings at home or at the door of your business before you pick up the phone to call. You are marketing yourself, and you want to do it the right way. You must know your policies inside out, how they can be adapted to buyer’s needs, what carriers can do special exceptions for a potential customer, and how you can make your lead’s life a lot easier and safer with the right insurance policy.

The more you work on your selling skills the better you get at selling insurance. It just takes the will, drive and dedication to make it all come together and build your business.

Yes, there are going to be customers that do not have access to the internet. However, there are just as many that do have it and use it for various things. If a potential customer does not use a computer, it’s a good bet these days that their children or grandchildren do. There is always a way to send leads information other than by regular mail.

Find out how to get information they ask for to them. Make sure to stay in touch for the duration, from initial contact to eventual conversion. That does not happen overnight, although we have heard of it happening now and then. The point is, leads do not work themselves and agents are busy people. Leveraging the internet and social media is one of the best ways to manage the workflow and to stay on top of the changing demographics of your agency.

Using leads keeps your business growing. Using the internet to expand your reach even further is smart marketing.

When customers get superlative support quickly, efficiently and politely, they instantly begin to find a level of trust in your insurance agency. They know their concerns are indeed important to you and that they will be dealt with promptly. Even if the outcome is not exactly as you may have hoped it would be, if the agency gives it their best to resolve an issue, it speaks volumes about you as the owner.

Customers like nothing better than quick service, an attentive customer service representative, access to the agency owner when necessary and an equitable resolution to a thorny issue. Additionally, when offering good customer service, take the time to mention any policy discounts or other incentives to purchase final life expense or term insurance or protection for your college student.

Never miss an opportunity to upsell your agency, services and products. Even when working insurance leads, your contact information is valuable for the next time a potential customer talks to you or wants to get a hold of you later.

Let’s be honest here. You want to grow your business, right? You did not get into selling insurance because you intended on losing money or giving away all your products. So, where do you start to get a good solid foothold in sales; sales that increase the dollar value of your business? Easy, insurance leads, the pre-vetted ones, and in particular Medicare supplement leads, are the best place to start. There is definitely no shortage of Americans who need Medicare, and if you have the drive to succeed at your business, then this is an area you need to take advantage of right now.

You know all about health insurance exchanges. You also know that they do not sell Medicare or Medicare supplements. This means you have a virtually captive audience waiting for your call. Okay, it’s not quite that simple, but pretty darn close. You sign up to get leads from a reputable lead generation company, like benepath.net. You ask for Medicare supplement leads at least once a week to begin with to get your feet wet and get into the rhythm of calling about and selling Medicare and supplements. Once you have the hang of it, you can ask for more to be delivered to your inbox.

Medicare supplement leads, provided you act on them with due diligence, have the capacity to make you a very nice income by the end of the year. What’s more is, the customers you sell to now are likely to stay with your agency come renewal time. Why? Because you provided them with good service, are personable and cheerful, know your products, treat them with respect, find them the best deals possible, handle claims with care and alacrity and overall, represent your company in fine style. You run interference for them with the insurer and in general pave the way for a good health insurance experience. All this, thanks to health insurance leads that you bought from a lead generation company.

While the online world of selling insurance is not what it used to be, it is no less personal. People may not see you or meet with you directly, not like in the old days, but they can and will get to know you through your online presence, via your website, and as a result of you speaking to them on the phone and delivering the service you say you will deliver.

Dive into the dynamic world pursuing health insurance leads sent to you by a lead generation company. Those exclusive ones can make your week so busy, you’ll be glad you spent a bit extra to get them. Just remember that old saying: “You need to spend money to make money.”

The only way people are going to click with you is if you have an online presence that makes you easily accessible, demonstrates your knowledge, good customer service and thorough understanding of your products. The more you offer online about your products, services and knowledge, the more people come to understand who you are.

When using insurance leads, the fact that you have a solid online presence is gold in the bank. You may refer potential conversions to your website. Let them know you are ready to answer any of their questions and would be happy to send them further information. Make it easy for people to contact you other ways besides just the phone call you make on following up a lead from a lead generation company.

The more accessible you are, the more clients will find their way to your doorstep, website or in person, and it does not matter if those clients came about as a result of converting a lead. Leads work in many different ways. Learn how to leverage them in more ways than just calling.

You need to understand their decision chain, and by this we mean what is important to potential customers. Offering a random collection of policies or the wrong one drives clients away. Knowing what your demographic needs is the key to not only offering the right product at the right time, but converting the shopper into a buyer.

Once you have identified the right product, now is the time to start educating the consumer about the product/policy and what service, coverage and value they are getting by buying it.

Does it take a while to get all that done? Yes, but the more time you spend with a customer, the better they understand you and your products. This is not only beneficial for you, but the client. It generates loyalty and ensures customer retention and word-of-mouth marketing for you with their friends, family and relatives.

You got into this business because you wanted to help people find the right kind of insurance that is uniquely suited to them and to make money, after all, an insurance agency IS a business. So, by investing in health insurance leads, you have a constant supply of people to sell policies to. Work them the way you were taught in training and go above and beyond the call of duty.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

It’s a bit like having a silver platter handed to you. So you might as well take advantage of it and get the good leads, leads with the highest potential of converting, because they are in real-time, pre-vetted, pre-qualified and virtually ready to buy — if not immediately, then within six to eight weeks. Seniors need the coverage and you have the policies that suit their needs. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

The market is ripe for agents selling life insurance to savvy buyers who recognize that now is the time to get insurance to protect their families if something happens to them.

Leery about buying leads? Not sure whether you should choose shared or exclusive leads? Largely, that depends on what you want to accomplish and how fast. Shared leads may take forever and a day to pay off in any substantive way. Exclusive leads could pay off much quicker, because they are only sent to one agent. It often makes sense to try both ways to get an idea of what works best for you.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

These days, it’s not unusual to hear about companies dropping group insurance or cutting back on what they offer employees. The still shaky economy is the reason for that. What company in their right mind wants to immediately jump on the bandwagon of offering group insurance to workers if they may have to downsize suddenly or shut their doors.

For agents wanting to pursue group insurance leads, it is best to order the exclusive ones. These days, if you get an exclusive lead from a reputable lead generation company, you know it is a good lead, as they are pre-screened and pre-qualified and have actually asked to have an insurance agent contact them. No sense wasting your valuable time trying to chase down leads on your own, not in this economic maelstrom. If you stick with exclusive leads, they have the potential to pay off later, and that is an encouraging starting point.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Once you have a Medicare supplement customer, they will typically stay with you for long periods of time, provided you offer them the best of customer service, answer their questions to the best of your ability, help them with claims and make suggestions that would help them save money. Medicare supplement leads are the road to success for an insurance agency because everyone either needs it soon or they need it now. The ball is in your court to make the most of the market.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

In order to make your insurance business a profitable one, you want to ensure you have enough business coming in on a regular basis. One way to accomplish this is to invest in Pennsylvania Medicare supplement leads. They help take the edge off working in a struggling economy to sell insurance to people who feel they cannot afford it.

Since times are tough, you want a client base that streams in on a regular basis. You can do this by investing in Medicare supplement leads from a reputable lead generation company. Why would you want to spend the money to get those exclusive leads? In the first place, those exclusive leads are only sold to you. And secondly, if you are selling Medicare, you have a captive audience because seniors need Medicare supplements. They have been hit by the poor economy as well, and if you have a package that is reasonably priced, and delivers the care they need, you will have a customer.

Pennsylvania Medicare supplement leads boost your client base, as they come in when you want them to. Schedule them when you have time and watch the sales start to roll in. While it may not happen overnight, because people typically need up to eight weeks to make a purchase decision, the sale will come if they have asked for an agent to call them. They are pre-qualified buyers and are serious. This is a bonus for you.

Part of your job, besides working with Medicare supplement leads, is to educate seniors on how the system works. Many of them find Medicare a horrific pain in the anatomy to try and understand when all they want is insurance coverage that works when they need it. Unfortunately, many seniors are not aware of Medicare supplements and what they can do for them. This is where you come in.

When people opt in to have an insurance agent call them with details about Medicare, you already have your foot in the door. If you know your product, and know what your clients usually look for when it comes to Medicare and Medicare supplements, you have the ball already rolling. Just invest some of your time answering questions for those who welcome your knowledge and expertise when it comes to Medicare supplements.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Blogs are easily shared on all social media platforms, and because you have information on potential customers thanks to the insurance leads you bought from benepath.net, you know which platforms people likely hang out on. You tailor your blog pieces accordingly.

And remember the blog does not have to be about insurance. Your entries could include business-related news, business tips, industry news or educational information. It’s all about who you are marketing to for any given post idea. Before you write a piece, think about what you, as an agent and/or broker, want to share and what potential and existing clients would find interesting.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Again, the insurance leads you bought from benepath.net, which are chockfull of information, whether they are in the Medicare niche or the group insurance niche, are worth looking up on Twitter. The more you get a sense of who your potential client may be, the easier it is to relate to them and find the right kind of insurance policy to suit their needs.

Be creative. Have fun. Engage others on Twitter or other social media platforms and let them get to know who you are. Personally marketing yourself as well as a product is the best way to cultivate customers and get conversions.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Agents and brokers will find YouTube an excellent platform for sharing recorded webinars, videos, executive briefings and customer testimonials. Remember, those customer testimonials came from the leads you purchased from benepath.net. If you think your marketing dollars need to be spent somewhere else, think about the power of social media and set up a branded LinkedIn company page and a YouTube Channel, then get to work to market your agency at a level you may never have dreamed was possible before.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

For instance, did you know that Google+ gets 120 million visitors every month? LinkedIn garners 255 million visits monthly. Twitter boasts 310 million visits. Pinterest gets at least 250 million and Facebook gets a staggering 900 million visitors. Not to be outdone by competing social media platforms, YouTube pulls 1 billion unique visits every month. Imagine!

The fact is that a good segment of your prospects hang out on at least one of the six top social media platforms. The population of the U.S. alone is roughly 320 million. The potential business exposure is phenomenal and means that every insurance agency and broker should have a professional presence on at least five of the top social media sites: Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

Make social media work for you by leveraging its unlimited power. And remember, once you have those leads from benepath.net, you have the foundation of a solid marketing list.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

With pre-qualified, pre-screened leads coming to your inbox as often as you want them, it’s easy to have a list of people to call every day. Let’s face it. If you’re selling Medicare supplements, this is going to be the best way to up your sales quota as well. People need and want what you have to offer because they want to take care of their health. If you have what they need, take the time to help them choose what works the best for them and offer premiere customer service, you will have a loyal customer. Sometimes, life really is just that simple.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Leads like this not only grow your business but also maintain it. There is absolutely no better way to get fresh, up-to-the-minute prospects in your inbox as often as you want them. Investing in exclusive life insurance leads from a well-known lead generation company saves you the time and frustration of trying to find the leads and work them on your own. Yes, selling insurance is tough. Selling life insurance can be even harder, but it does not have to be when you are well equipped with exclusive life insurance leads.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Want to stand out from the pack? Get exclusive life insurance leads, know your products, have a terrific script (which you keep improving), offer all the top products people want, send personal notes, provide useful information and use, where appropriate, follow-up emails and calls. If you do all those things, you stand out. Selling life insurance is difficult, we all know that. But it does not have to be if you invest in leads that are pre-qualified and pre-screened. You can’t do any better than that. And if you work those leads in the right way, your business bank account will look very good every year.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

If you are smart enough to recognize that daily leads coming in means money in the bank, then you know you can also build on those leads to keep ahead of the curve. Don’t give up on leads that seem shaky. Keep working them for at least four to six weeks because sometimes Texas health insurance leads take time to make up their minds. Sure, some will buy immediately. Others take the full six to eight weeks. If you have the patience for leads that want to take their time and combine that with incoming immediate leads, you have the best of both worlds. Why not give it a try?

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Granted, some seniors may not have access to a computer, but a vast majority of today’s elders are fairly proficient with technology. Why not take advantage of that and save yourself some money? Did you know that it’s almost four times less expensive to use internet leads than trying for direct mail leads? Think about how that has the potential to directly affect your bottom line.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Let’s be honest here. You want to grow your business, right? You did not get into selling insurance because you intended on losing money or giving away all your products. So, where do you start to get a good solid foothold in sales; sales that increase the dollar value of your business? Easy, insurance leads, the pre-vetted ones, and in particular Medicare supplement leads, are the best place to start. There is definitely no shortage of Americans who need Medicare, and if you have the drive to succeed at your business, then this is an area you need to take advantage of right now.

You know all about health insurance exchanges. You also know that they do not sell Medicare or Medicare supplements. This means you have a virtually captive audience waiting for your call. Okay, it’s not quite that simple, but pretty darn close. You sign up to get leads from a reputable lead generation company, like benepath.net. You ask for Medicare supplement leads at least once a week to begin with to get your feet wet and get into the rhythm of calling about and selling Medicare and supplements. Once you have the hang of it, you can ask for more to be delivered to your inbox.

Medicare supplement leads, provided you act on them with due diligence, have the capacity to make you a very nice income by the end of the year. What’s more is, the customers you sell to now are likely to stay with your agency come renewal time. Why? Because you provided them with good service, are personable and cheerful, know your products, treat them with respect, find them the best deals possible, handle claims with care and alacrity and overall, represent your company in fine style. You run interference for them with the insurer and in general pave the way for a good health insurance experience. All this, thanks to health insurance leads that you bought from a lead generation company.

While the online world of selling insurance is not what it used to be, it is no less personal. People may not see you or meet with you directly, not like in the old days, but they can and will get to know you through your online presence, via your website, and as a result of you speaking to them on the phone and delivering the service you say you will deliver.

Dive into the dynamic world pursuing health insurance leads sent to you by a lead generation company. Those exclusive ones can make your week so busy, you’ll be glad you spent a bit extra to get them. Just remember that old saying: “You need to spend money to make money.”

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Blogs are easily shared on all social media platforms, and because you have information on potential customers thanks to the insurance leads you bought from benepath.net, you know which platforms people likely hang out on. You tailor your blog pieces accordingly.

And remember the blog does not have to be about insurance. Your entries could include business-related news, business tips, industry news or educational information. It’s all about who you are marketing to for any given post idea. Before you write a piece, think about what you, as an agent and/or broker, want to share and what potential and existing clients would find interesting.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Again, the insurance leads you bought from benepath.net, which are chockfull of information, whether they are in the Medicare niche or the group insurance niche, are worth looking up on Twitter. The more you get a sense of who your potential client may be, the easier it is to relate to them and find the right kind of insurance policy to suit their needs.

Be creative. Have fun. Engage others on Twitter or other social media platforms and let them get to know who you are. Personally marketing yourself as well as a product is the best way to cultivate customers and get conversions.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Agents and brokers will find YouTube an excellent platform for sharing recorded webinars, videos, executive briefings and customer testimonials. Remember, those customer testimonials came from the leads you purchased from benepath.net. If you think your marketing dollars need to be spent somewhere else, think about the power of social media and set up a branded LinkedIn company page and a YouTube Channel, then get to work to market your agency at a level you may never have dreamed was possible before.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

For instance, did you know that Google+ gets 120 million visitors every month? LinkedIn garners 255 million visits monthly. Twitter boasts 310 million visits. Pinterest gets at least 250 million and Facebook gets a staggering 900 million visitors. Not to be outdone by competing social media platforms, YouTube pulls 1 billion unique visits every month. Imagine!

The fact is that a good segment of your prospects hang out on at least one of the six top social media platforms. The population of the U.S. alone is roughly 320 million. The potential business exposure is phenomenal and means that every insurance agency and broker should have a professional presence on at least five of the top social media sites: Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

Make social media work for you by leveraging its unlimited power. And remember, once you have those leads from benepath.net, you have the foundation of a solid marketing list.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Typically, Medicare supplement leads are the most lucrative largely because you have a captive audience actively searching for supplements to help fill the gaps in their Medicare insurance. That being said, you would still want to narrow your competition in this area by ordering exclusive Medicare supplement leads.

The word “exclusive” to most people means that an individual is the only one receiving something. However, when it comes to online lead generation companies, exclusive does not necessarily mean exclusive to just one agent. It may mean exclusive to seven or more agents at the same time, which is a total waste of your money and time.

Those are not exclusive leads, they are shared leads. If you are trying to grow your insurance business, you want leads that are exclusive to you only.

Some agents may certainly find the price of shared leads to be very attractive, but in the long run, shared leads means lost money for the agent that came onto the calling tree last. By the time agent number seven starts calling his or her shared leads, he or she may discover the people with whom they are speaking have already talked to six other agents.

By ordering exclusive to you only leads, you are getting prospects who need and want some kind of health insurance, whether it is Medicare supplements, final expense insurance or long-term care insurance. Every day, Americans experience changes in their lives: someone discovers a health condition, changes or loses their job, turns 65 or experiences a financial setback. These are potential clients.

Casting a wide net to pull in as many leads as possible typically fails to bring in the kind of business a successful insurance agent wants to cultivate for the long term. Target marketing makes more sense, and by purchasing exclusive leads in the niche of choice, the chances of closing more sales is greater. Exclusive leads are definitely more expensive, but they are worth the investment due to their high conversion rate.

Other types of leads you may consider are filtered, shared and dated/aged. Filtered leads can be beneficial in winnowing down in a certain niche, and over the long haul may end up costing less due to the limited leads provided.

Shared leads are typically less expensive, but the competition is fierce. If you do not act on them immediately, you lose the lead to someone else.

The least expensive leads are aged or dated but do present some problems: the lead did not buy the first time they were contacted, they were never contacted at all (which is tantamount to a cold call) or the individual did buy, but they made a poor choice. If you enjoy challenges, these may be the leads for you. If you value your time, because time is money, you may want to invest in exclusive leads.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Project your enthusiasm for each lead in each call you make and/or every meeting you attend. The energy and enthusiasm brings a sense of confidence to each lead who wants to know what you have to sell.

Remember that a lead does not sell itself. It is a tool to get in the door and then start talking about insurance needs, prices, policies, what is covered and what is not. If those leads are ignored or treated like they are not that important, the people you talk to and meet are going to know they are not your priority. In turn, you are not their priority either, and they may well move on to another agent.

Leads are invaluable tools to make your business grow. Work them with pride, attention to detail, enthusiasm and energy, and your sales base will be phenomenal.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

At one time, the high pressure sales approach was considered to be the only way to ensure a sale. It was thought that it was good practice to never quit on attempting to get a sale until the potential buyer bought a policy. It often didn’t matter what the agent had to do to get that signature on a policy. They were intently fixed on the sale and only the sale.

These days that style of selling has gone out with the dinosaurs. Now people want the personal touch, a connection to the agent, a one-on-one respectful conversation, the chance to ask questions, to compare policies, to be treated as if they were important. People want courtesy, respect, intelligent interaction and an insurance agent who knows their products and offers stellar customer service.

Insurance leads are not about selling as much you can in as little time as possible. They are about building a loyal customer base for your agency — a base that renews every year and passes your name along to friends and relatives. Insurance leads are also about continuing to grow your business while working on customer retention.

Selling insurance is a bit of a merry-go-round, but if done the right way, the ride is well worth it.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

You cannot successfully sell complex goods, such as insurance policies, without also offering service on those policies, whether that be handling a claim or explaining what is and is not covered. In other words, you need to know each policy and all your services intimately to allow you to answer any questions promptly and thoroughly.

People who want to buy insurance from you need to know that you know what you are doing. If you cannot explain your services or are vague about what you offer, they are going to notice, and you stand a good chance of losing a sale.

Never assume you know all there is to know about every policy. If you sell a policy, make sure you read it, study it, talk about it, know everything there is to know about it and be able to expertly handle any questions. The growth of your business depends on it.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

By asking questions and listening closely during conversation with a lead, you’ll find a wealth of clues that can help you convert a lead to a sale. Having questions ready to ask will help you prepare and better understand what that person and/or their family needs.

Making notes and writing down the answers to any questions you asked a potential client also allows you to have a more personal conversation with the individual when you visit them to discuss insurance needs. By showing that you have paid attention to what they said and noted what they want, you are building a rapport that may pay off in a sale.

Never underestimate the power of chatting about children, pets, cars, fashion trends or even politics. It shows the buyer who you are, how you think and gives them an idea of how you do business. This is the more personal approach to sales. In selling insurance, the personal approach is highly effective.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

If you want to have an extra leg up over the competition, make sure you sell yourself. Start talking to a potential client in a conversational manner. Make the time to visit with them and find out a bit about their needs and wants. Try not to immediately open a discussion with a sales pitch. Many people do not appreciate being bombarded with sales talk before they even get a sense of who you are.

Ask open-ended questions. Ask about family. The weather. Children. Just be conversational. It is less threatening, and as an experienced agent, you are then able to assess the potential buyer to determine what may suit his or her needs.

Remember not to do all the talking. Listen, and listen carefully.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

The best way to ensure a lead remains a loyal customer is to make first contact. Agents who are the first to speak to a potential customer have a distinct advantage. That means not sitting on leads when they come in. Call right away and leave a clear message with your name and your company name if no one answers. Even leave a quote if that works for you or choose to just say you have one prepared and think they may like it. Not leaving a message is as good as not having made the call at all.

Don’t just leave your contact at a phone call and message. Send a follow up email outlining the benefits of dealing with your company and how you may be able to assist them in choosing the right insurance package for their needs. If you do not hear back from them, keep going until you have run out of options. This isn’t to say hound a potential client, but instead, be professional, helpful, to the point and personable.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Gone are the days of cold calling, constant networking, selling to the warm market (relatives and friends) and frantic email marketing campaigns. Email-marketing campaigns do work, but they work best when you have already converted a lead.

Running an insurance agency means not always having the time to chase down leads or be on the phone all day trying to set up appointments. This is where buying pre-qualified and pre-screened insurance leads comes into play. If you order exclusive leads, they are precisely that, exclusive to you only. Beware of lead generation companies that say they sell exclusive leads but really mean elusive leads, as they have also sold them to at least seven other agents. Those leads are a monumental waste of time and marketing dollars.

A relatively short time ago, insurance marketing was done almost exclusively via direct mail, cold calling, flyers, networking, advertisements in local publications and various online marketing efforts, such as pay per click or Google AdWords. Some worked. Some did not.

These days lead generation companies have opened the door to an exciting world of almost instant sales partnered with social media marketing, webinar marketing, website promotion, and direct email campaigns. How do insurance agents and brokers get the right kinds of leads to grow their business?

Insurance leads are driven by marketplace eccentricities, trending demands and captive niche market demands.

Sell Medicare supplements? Your online lead generation company can provide you with exclusive Medicare supplement leads on a daily basis if you wish. The Medicare supplement market is captive, as those in the qualifying age bracket need what you are selling.

Want to sell final expense insurance? An online lead generation company can provide real time final expense leads that have the potential to convert instantly or within a few weeks.

Specialize in selling health insurance? This trending demand means a steady stream of leads once ordered from a reliable lead generation company. Make those leads exclusive and the potential for conversion is much higher.

Monitor your market and competition. This gives you the right market signals to focus your marketing dollars where they are needed at any given moment. Stay ahead of the trends and your business will grow by leaps and bounds.

Selling insurance is a calling at which some do very well, and some appear to grow their business without seeming to work too hard. Do not be deceived by what you may think is effortless lead conversion and a successful marketing program. Everything takes time to learn, build on, grow and perfect. Success is due to hard work, due diligence, dedication and knowing your products.

Contrary to popular myth, there is no secret niche to find in relation to marketing insurance online. Marketing involves elbow grease, smart budget choices, buying quality leads, knowing the competition and understanding the buyers you need to reach. For example, if you are selling Medicare supplements, your key to success is knowing your market and what potential buyers want and need.

Understanding what motivates people in your demographic to buy services and products is the best method of further refining your marketing strategies. Conversely, if you start marketing with a scatter gun approach, your results are guaranteed to be dismal. Stick to what you know. Know what to stick to and for each niche or product you want to market, market smart and tailor your leads to that niche/demographic. If you don’t market to those who need your product, no one is going to be able to find you.

If you want the best marketing strategy to work any product niche, then make use of quality leads from a reliable lead generation company. Make sure they stand behind what they sell to you and that if they state they sell exclusive leads, then make sure they are actually exclusive to only you. There are a lot of lead generation companies out there that say they sell exclusive leads, but they mean they sell exclusively to six or seven people at once.

Know what you’re getting. Know what to spend. Know the demographics you are working and your business is going to be successful.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

One of the best ways to get the pulse of what’s happening with your customers is to not only carefully read the incoming leads for clues, but to talk to those leads and find out what their concerns and needs are when it comes to health insurance or any other form of insurance you sell. It goes without saying that everyone needs something different when it comes to insurance.

Listen to your leads’ stories. The stories tell you what people want, need and dream about. Since you sell the protection, knowing the stories is paramount to your success.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

The internet is alive with a plethora of lead generation companies that claim they are the best. Some offer free leads. Others offer exclusive leads. Some offers are almost too tempting to pass up, but you should pass them up.

The first rule of thumb when searching for a reliable lead generation company that stands behind their product and sells exclusive, pre-qualified, pre-screened and verified leads is that the company does not offer you free leads. They are free for a reason, which is usually that at least seven other agents have the same leads or the family dog filled out the form. Free leads are a waste of time, as are exclusive leads sold by some lead generation companies because when they say exclusive, they mean exclusive to a group of agents, not just one agent. Be careful what you buy.

Free leads do have a cost — the cost of lost potential revenue in the form of poor quality leads or clients that sign up for very low cost policies.

First and foremost, a lead generation company needs to provide its customer agents with marketing leads that sell. While that may seem like a no-brainer, there are companies out there that churn aged leads, dud leads and leads that have not been screened. If the leads are not pre-screened and pre-qualified, you are wasting your time and money chasing a questionable lead.

Find out how the lead generation company garners its leads. Do the leads come from telemarketing, direct mail, or preset appointments? Most lead suppliers tend to specialize in one form and sell those leads at a per lead cost. There are some that say they provide leads free. Check every company out before you invest your marketing dollars. Ask around. Find out if any other agents have bought leads from companies you are considering and ask about their experiences. Generally speaking, if a claim sounds far too good to be true, it usually is.

At one time, marketing leads could be generated by an opt-in voicemail. However, that is illegal in the U.S., and if a company tells you they provide voicemail leads, find out if they obtained written permission from the caller and ask them to prove it.

These days the most popular leads and most expensive are preset appointment leads where the agent just has to show up for the appointment and sell a policy. While this is fine in theory, in practice there are some serious issues with the type of lead.

For instance, an agent may show up and be told that the telemarketer told them the agent would just drop off information, or the potential buyer told the telemarketer they were not interested but they were pressured into agreeing to an appointment. Then there are the appointments the agent shows up for and the lead is not home. Get credit for those leads? Usually you get credited with your expenditure for that dud lead toward another order. However, now that you know you get dud leads, and you cannot trust what you may find at a preset appointment, you may be playing “credit me forward” tag until your contract has ended.

When it comes right down to it, ask questions, then ask more questions and do your homework on the lead generation company that you are considering. Weed out what sends up red flags and work to find one that suits your style and goals. Lead generation companies and insurance agents are supposed to be partners with the leads provided, ensuring an agent’s success at selling.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

In working to develop your insurance agency you want a coach who has already been successful and can show you how to get to the top. They have already traveled down the road you are about to embark on, and their insider tips and tactics to garner more leads and get more conversions are invaluable. This is applicable even if you have been selling insurance for years. You are never too old to learn new tricks to improve your business and marketing skills, or to learn ways to crank up your conversion rate.

Marketing can be tricky, and marketing an insurance agency can be even more difficult because people don’t tend to like insurance agents. Learn new ways to handle this aversion. Find out how to work leads to your best advantage. Order exclusive leads and make sure you stay on top of them. It’s all about succeeding in your chosen field, and that means learning something new from a mentor, or developing a method of dealing with leads that proves highly successful for you. All you need to do when you find a coach or mentor is listen and follow their lead. Then, you tweak what you learn to make it work even better.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Your business entity may be any one of the following: corporation, sole proprietorship, LLC or partnership. Take the time to get an Employer Identification Number from the IRS and make sure to set up a separate bank account.

Anything financial relating to your company must be run through your business bank account. Having the trappings of what you need to run a business in place helps you think like you are running a business and not just doing something you like as a hobby. Formalizing it with the paperwork makes you a real entity and you’re ready to get out there and sell insurance.

Lay the groundwork for success before you leap off a tall building and dive right in. If you have the foundation in place, success follows.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

If you’re new to the concept of buying leads from a lead generation company, then ask around to other agents and find out how they work their leads. You may find out some good tips and you may also discover that you prefer working leads in your own way. Whatever works and gets the job done — meaning you make a sale — is what you need to stick with to make progress.

Selling insurance is a difficult job. No one said you’d have it easy when you got into this field. However, there are ways to make your job easier. One of those ways is to avoid cold calling and instead, invest your marketing dollars in leads. It’s one of the best investments you can make in the future of your agency.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

It’s also about being grounded and being able to stay on track when you are in the business frame of mind. Don’t work from the kitchen table or the bathtub. Make your designated office area the hub of all important business decisions. The place where you keep your files, notes, leads and technical manuals needed to answer questions. It’s not a pit stop to just whip out a few emails or a storage place for dog bones or kid’s toys. It is a workspace where serious work is done. It’s also a tax deductible niche in your home for a business office.

Carry this mental focus forward with you to running your brick and mortar office as well and you are going to be in good shape for whatever life throws at you.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Even if you did not invest too much to get your agency going and are not using your marketing dollars wildly, approach your leads like they hold the keys to the kingdom of success — because they do. If you think big, work big, follow up all your leads in a big way, your success is virtually guaranteed. It is actually easy to grow your agency by thinking and imagining your huge success is now and not further down the line.

If you treat your business like it’s a lemonade stand that you just spent a few hours on each day, others will treat it that way as well. Why would people want to deal with a part-time agent who pokes about from time to time sending out messages? If customers want and need insurance, they want someone who is right there, right away, who thinks large and puts their needs in the forefront. An agent who knows his or her stuff inside out and who takes whatever time a potential customer needs to make a sale. It’s about good service and being yourself.

Being a big thinker about how to succeed at selling insurance puts you in a whole other frame of mind: the successful frame of mind, where good things start to happen on a regular basis. Simply put, you get more conversions by thinking big and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

How so you ask? Your leads in the MLM industry are an investment to work, to ensure you receive an income, much like insurance leads are an investment to work when you want to sell insurance. In short, without leads, you cannot grow. So, you need to work insurance leads from a lead generation company just like you would work MLM leads. Know you products. Strive to educate your potential customer. Provide good service. Follow up and promptly answer any questions. Be personable. Stay on top of your training.

The most important thing for you to understand when you buy leads is that you can’t just read them and file them. They come to you in real time, and if you work them right away, your chances of converting a potential customer is high. While they may take a few weeks to eventually decide what they want, they have already indicated they are interested in insurance and need information. This is the time to take action and do due diligence.

If you wait on your leads and let them age, you stand the chance of losing them. When people go to the trouble to fill out a contact form requesting an agent, they generally expect to hear from someone within at least 24 hours. Wait any longer and the lead may lose their enthusiasm for buying a policy. You know what to do. Do it with enthusiasm and do it quickly and watch your agency grow.

The tricky thing is, most lead generation companies just do not mention this point at all, which could well mean you are being sold leads that thought they may win a trip to Hawaii, a free laptop or whatever other incentive lead chasers choose to use. Think those have a chance of converting? Not so much.

This is actually a question you need to ask any lead generation company you are considering as your lead provider. It is important to know how they work. What are their ethics? Where do they get their leads? How fresh are they really? What do they do if you get leads filled out by the family hamster? And so forth. Never assume something about a lead generation company until you have checked it out. Ask questions over and over if you do not feel you are getting straight answers.

A lead generation company is a partner in your success. If that partner short-changes you on leads, you received the short end of the stick. Check around until you find a company that genuinely wants to and actually does work with you. It is your career and your business. You are in it to succeed and the minute someone does not help you with that goal, you need to move on.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

It never pays to just look up a lead generation company, glance through their website and decide you want to spend money on their leads. Do what you tell your own customers: “Read the fine print.” You may find out many things that do not work for you with that particular lead generation company. For example, the fine print might say they do not replace dud leads. That means you could possibly be out-of-pocket for one or more leads per batch. That adds up over time.

Always check out the company you like. We cannot emphasize that enough. It is for your own protection to check everything you are told and promised, not to mention the fact that if you do due diligence and find something you do not like, you just saved yourself money to buy decent leads that convert someplace else.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Those leads may be sold to insurance agents who work for a health insurance niche. When an agent calls the lead, both the agent and the lead are confused because the lead wanted home business start-up information. This is not a targeted lead. Think you might sell them health insurance? Probably not.

Do not believe everything you read about lead generation companies. Do your own research. Always.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

And the point in that scenario is: Do not spend money on shared leads. You never recover it, end up irritating customers who figure they are heard from over 50 agents in a day, week or month. You waste your time and increase your stress level. You are in the insurance business because you want to sell insurance and make money. Throwing your marketing dollars to the wind by buying cycled, cycled and recycled leads makes no sense whatsoever.

If you are going to deal with a lead generation company, make certain to check them out before you hop on board and find out those juicy leads they perked you are over 21 days old. Ask colleagues, mentors, call a lead generation company directly and interview them about what they do and their ethics. It is your money. Spend it wisely for the maximum bang for your buck.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Spend some decent marketing money on getting solid leads that convert. The kind of leads that are pre-screened, pre-qualified and virtually ready-to-go. The kind of leads you do not have to waste your time on wondering if you will ever make a sale. Sure, you do spend a bit more for leads exclusive to you only, but you get what you pay for when it comes to leads.

Insurance marketing is tough enough these days without chasing dud, chewed-up leads. Since we are talking about clichés here, remember this one: “You have to spend money to make money.” It is true. So do not scrooge your marketing dollars. Splurge them and watch the pay-off ratio when ready-to-go, decent leads convert.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Funerals are far more expensive than many people realize, and many also do not understand that their total costs for a funeral are not payable to just one entity, the funeral home. The funeral home bill alone is apt to run about $6,000. Included in that cost is a casket ($2,300) embalming and preparation of the body ($600), funeral viewing and ceremony ($1,000), funeral director’s basic fee ($1,500) and there are also miscellaneous expenses such as an obituary, obtaining a death certificate and the hearse journey to the graveyard ($600). All funeral home expenses would be subject to change.

Many individuals wish to be buried in a cemetery. Costs associated with this service may range up to or over approximately $2,000. Those costs include buying the grave space ($1,000) and digging the grave ($600). The cost of digging is not included in the purchase of grave space. Other costs most often associated with a funeral include a headstone or grave marker. The average price of a headstone is $2,000 and the average price of a marker is $1,000.

If the funeral director acts as the coordinator between his business, the cemetery and headstone maker, costs may be even higher, as the headstone maker and cemetery may be paying the funeral director a commission for the business.

To market final expense insurance, you need to target your clientele. You may want to market to seniors, term life insurance holders, short-term insurance holders and those who are not eligible for traditional insurance. Seniors often do not purchase insurance after retiring, but they do want to cover their burial expenses. Premiums for this type of insurance are quite low.

Short-term insurance typically covers a defined period in the insurance holder’s life, like a mortgage loan term or college for the children. They often realize the benefit of having final expense insurance, just in case. And in the case of term life insurance holders, they appreciate having basic funeral cover if they happen to live longer than the term of their policy.

Working out an effective marketing strategy to reach those interested in final expenses takes planning, implementation and dedication. You are selling insurance. You likely have those traits in spades.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive life insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Many new insurance agents feel that in order to get leads, they need to be on the phone virtually all day, every day. But that begs the question of how would anything concrete get done? Cold calling may still work today, but it a rare bird nonetheless and does consume a disproportionate amount of time. One of the most difficult jobs be successful in is selling insurance. It is tough to ask people if they want more insurance, because not many of them are going to reply in the affirmative.

Perhaps your sales manager insists you make a certain number of calls a day and keep track of them. By the end of the week it is going to become quite clear that being on the phone all day chasing leads is not lucrative.
At best, it the manager may provide their insider secret: Ask a potential lead if they would like a quote. Most potential customers do agree to receive a quote. After all, it does not commit them to anything. But it does not do much for the agent either, other than increase their level of frustration.

Consider some general mathematics before launching into making cold calls for a majority of your time in the office. Presume an agent’s time is worth at least $20.00 an hour. Over the course of the first few years in business, an agent selling health and life insurance may make up to $30,000 a year, which sounds good, but one needs to factor in at least a 25 percent deduction in the form of business expenses. Such expenses may include, but not be limited to: gas, eating out, office supplies, car maintenance, insurance on one’s vehicle, clothing, phone bills and office rental. Suddenly, that $30,000 may become more like $21,000.

What is the solution to the get leads or perish conundrum? The solution is just a click away, online. Buy internet leads, but remember to buy them from a reputable online lead generation company. Steer clear of lead generation companies that say they sell exculsive leads but in reality those leads are exclusive to at least seven other agents. More often than not these so-called exclusive leads are culled from generic sources such as telemarketing, television commercials, email marketing campaigns and banner ads online. Put another way, they are anything but exclusive.

Buying leads from a lead generation company is a smart investment of marketing dollars, but remember to choose a lead generation company carefully. Choose the leads that do pay off and are actually and genuinely exclusive and garnered in an ethical manner.

Which is more appealing? Working hundreds of unpaid hours to capture leads or buying leads that are virtually ready to convert, provided they are worked diligently? If one spends money on buying the best leads, then one’s career is can take off and become financially successful.

Getting smart and choosing a reputable online lead generation company is the ticket to success.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Listen to the dreams. Often therein lie clues to what people really want to accomplish in their lifetime, and how they want to look after their family or protect their own lives and health. Leads are human. They are not just numbers and names. If you are savvy enough to catch their dreams and discuss them with your lead and offer suggestions and solutions to difficulties they foresee now or later in life, you are likely to secure a very loyal customer.

What if a lead tries to lead you on and make you think they do want insurance of some kind and then disappears? It happens. You invest time and energy in talking to them, helping them, making suggestions that could make their lives easier or protect loved ones, and they just fold on you.

Move on. There are plenty of other leads that need a phone call. There are plenty of people that do want to talk and engage with you, are willing to listen to what you have to say and are interested in what you have to offer. It’s all part of being a good agent.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Are they looking for financial security for their family if something happens to them? Do they want death benefits? Term insurance? Insurance for their children? Medicare supplements? Enrolment information?

What does that potential conversion need when you speak with them on the phone? Sure, you called them as a lead because they expressed an interest in insurance, but you need to fine-tune the conversation to figure out what type of insurance they need.

Not everyone understands what they do need when it comes to health or other forms of insurance. For instance, a mid-50s couple might want long-term care insurance, but do not want to say so because they are in good health now and think they will be okay. They may want final expense insurance to care for their grandchild or other family member, but are reluctant to talk about their death.

Selling insurance is not a slam dunk by any means. You have to work it and listen and listen some more to what a customer is saying. There are times when they obliquely mention something that if you do not pick up on, you may miss the sale.

An example would be an older couple with several grandkids and they mention in passing that they want to make sure the grandkids have money for their future. This is not just an expression of sentiment, although it may sound like it. It is a wish to be able to provide for them when they are gone. Here is an opportunity to discuss final expense insurance.

Always listen to your customers and potential customers, and listen hard.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

It is vitally important to remember that leads are not a source of future volume and should never be treated as the “be-all end-all” brass ring grab of success. Each lead is merely a potential source, not a guaranteed source. You must understand and know the difference. Knowing the difference helps you distinguish between a gangbuster, a huge lead and one that is a bust.

Save yourself the anguish of trying to qualify leads. Buy exclusive pre-screened leads from a reputable online lead generation company. All you need to do is open your email, organize the leads and start calling. Everything is done for you, except working the lead. Sweet!

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

The thing to remember with sales, and that includes in-person sales, on-the-phone sales and online sales, is that people want to know who you are first before they feel they can trust you. This is where your personality, customer service, knowledge and finesse come to the fore. In other words, spend time with the lead letting them get to know you, get a sense of who you are, how you do business and if you know what your are talking about.

Be prepared to run into those who you simply do not mesh with in any way. It happens. You can’t like every customer and every customer (potential or existing) does not always like you. However, if you have done enough sales and presentations, you have an innate radar warning system that gives you feedback on clients’ attitudes and whether they want to honestly buy insurance or are just kicking tires. It cannot be emphasized enough to listen to that radar. It’s your early warning system that sends up a flag that says more on to another lead.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Yes, it’s true, there are potential buyers that are not going to become buyers. The trick is to be able to distinguish between a “We are not ready to buy — yet” response and a “There is no way we will ever buy insurance from anyone” response.

Those who have no intentions of buying insurance are not always easy to spot, but watch for signs in the conversation that indicate they are not ready or willing to change their life. Most of those conversations are peppered with “Yes, but,” or for every counter to an argument you get yet another roadblock to surmount. Read the signs. Watch for the red flags. Back off and out when your gut instinct tells you they are not worth pursuing. Your instincts are usually right on that.

On the other hand, those who say “We are not ready to buy right now” are subtly leaving the door open for you to connect with them at a later date. This is your invitation to keep in touch, send useful information, answer any questions they may have, notify them of deals or new policies they may be interested in. And always remember to thank them for their time without being pushy.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Sure, some lead generation companies have terrible reputations and if you buy leads from them, expect the worst. That is just the nature of the business. Having said that, however, there are lead generation companies out there that do stand behind their leads, offer the best in service, provide pre-screened and pre-vetted leads and will tailor your order exactly how you want it. You can’t ask for anything better.

Lead generation is a very tricky market niche and there are few companies that are as reliable as benepath.net. But what if you are an agent that has issues with lead generation companies after hearing endless horror stories from other agents? First of all, take some of those stories with a grain of salt — not all leads fail because they are bad leads. Some fall on their face because the agent did not work them properly.

Generating leads on your own is definitely possible, but be aware of the pitfalls that accompany it and be wary of the high stress levels that come with trying to find leads on your own. Ulcers may become a reality over time.

At the end of the day, if you have exclusive leads coming to your inbox that do convert, wouldn’t you rather use those leads to build your business than take a chance on landing your own leads? It may make the difference between a lousy week at the office chasing questionable leads and the very exciting potential of five to seven exclusive leads that are more than just interested in a quote and willing to make an appointment. The latter generally leads to a conversion.

Just remember that your job as an agent is to keep two lists while building your business. The first list is existing customers and the second is potential customers. Both niches need to be serviced. The first niche is also valuable in providing you with leads, so it’s a win-win situation. Never neglect your existing customers to chase new leads. Your existing customers are your foundation and if you provide good service and products, they are likely to remain loyal to your agency for years to come.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

The most important thing to remember is that leads are not guaranteed sales. You have to work them to turn them into sales. Sure, the leads may be the best you have ever seen and can’t believe your luck, but if they are not worked quickly and with due diligence, they are a bust. It boils down to the fact that there are a lot of online insurance shoppers who enjoy comparing prices and asking questions, but are not ready to buy — yet.

Until you spend time with your leads, and yes, that does include calling and getting a sense of where they are in regard to buying insurance, you do not know if they are potential conversions. But make sure to get on those leads fast. If you have purchased shared leads, prompt action is a must or you lose your chance to make a sale to another agent who got on the phone first.

If you purchased exclusive leads, you still need to act fast. There is a very small window of time open to you to get on the phone and call real-time leads. If the window of time you have is longer than 24 hours, your job is that much tougher. Letting exclusive leads sit is also a waste of time when you could be setting up appointments and making sales.

The longer you are in the business of selling insurance, the better you get at sensing when a potential customer is about to make a buying decision. If you are persistent but not a pain in the anatomy, then those leads can turn into a major boon.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Anytime we figure that a potential customer should be ready to buy, or really should know that they could benefit from having protection, the universe hands us a wakeup call.

“Should have,” “could have” and “would have” are terms to banish from your sales vocabulary. Instead, look at things from the perspective of the customer and not from the point of view of a salesperson. Those who have money to spend take their time to choose what they want and make sure it suits their needs. Those who have a product to sell want customers to spend right away. Those two points of view are diametrically opposite. If you approach a potential sale as though it is entirely up to them to decide what they want and when they want it, chances are your conversion rate is going to go sky high.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

First you start with quality, exclusive leads sent only to you. Then you begin to work them in a methodical, planned and paced manner, setting up appointments, answering questions, making notes and sending out requested material. Put the ones worked aside for a bit or according to your notes on each potential customer. Set up a BF file and diligently check it every day.

Good customers do not grow on trees. This you already know from working in the insurance industry. It takes time, patience and even more patience before some contacts do buy. Some may go away for months and suddenly show up in your inbox because they recall you helped them in the beginning. Never rule out anyone as a live lead, even if they seem to have gone dormant. You just never know.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Yes, it may feel uncomfortable but that just might be the person who returns your call and says thanks for calling again, I have been meaning to get back to you and life got in the way. It happens. Do not give up on any potential customer, particularly if you got the lead from an online lead generation company and it was pre-screened and pre-qualified. That means the people are interested and want information.

Sometimes those who do ask for information suddenly find themselves second-guessing their actions, but remember this: They made the contact asking for someone to call them. They are part way down the path to purchasing a policy. It is up to you to be there when that moment happens.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Respect rejection. Work with it. Work around it. If you take it in stride, you get used to it. Besides, chances are you have also rejected something you did not want at the time you were asked. It just happens.

Eventually, those who need insurance are bound to ask you about it, since you were the point of connection to information and pricing. And if someone still does not want insurance, do not be discouraged, there are countless others who do.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Selling insurance is not a walk in the park, not in this economy. It takes skill, diligence, knowledge and a good product that people need to effectively sell. But most of all, it takes being right on the mark and following up quickly when real time leads come in.

Those leads have expressed more than just a passing interest in buying insurance. They have asked for someone to contact them and discuss their needs. It does not get any better than that. So do not wait when those exclusive, real time, ready-to-covert leads arrive. Act promptly and watch you bottom line get better every month.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Be realistic and set goals you know you can attain. An example would be to always invest in quality leads that you know are going to convert and call four of them every day. Set aside the time to do so and work through them diligently. Do not waste money on shared leads, unless you like being supremely frustrated at the end of the day when you discover everyone you called had already spoken to at least three other agents.

Get only exclusive-to-you leads. That is the ticket to success. That is the plan that cannot fail.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

If you have been in the business of selling insurance for any length of time, you have probably heard just about everything under the sun when it comes to buying leads. Lead generation is, of course, the lifeblood of any insurance agent, but finding leads these days is a monumentally difficult and time-consuming task. It does not need to be if you choose a reliable online lead generation company such as benepath.net.

But first, let’s take a quick look at some of the myths you may hear about online leads. There is the one where lead generation companies tell prospective client agents that they are selling exclusive leads. They do not necessarily mean exclusive to you alone. They generally mean exclusive to a group of seven or more agents. That is one of the biggest wastes of time and money you are ever likely to come across. If you want to be smart about your marketing dollars, do not buy exclusive-to-a-group leads. Ante up some more cash and get exclusive-to-you-only leads. It is worth the money because those leads do convert when worked properly.

Leads that are shared are virtually useless unless you happen to be the first person on the list to get the leads and the quickest to call. Let’s face it: Who is always going to be right at their computer when a list of shared leads comes in? You are running an insurance agency, you do not have time to sit and wait for a list of names that are going to be well chewed up by the time you may be able to start working them.

If you do get anyone to talk to you, you may find out the individual on the other end of the line has had it with insurance agents and hangs up. Another wasted call. Another hour of wasted time. A few more dollars wasted on leads that do not pan out. Wouldn’t it be much better if you paid for and got truly exclusive leads?

Did you know that some lead generation companies simply cull names from banner ads and other forms offering a free iPod or laptop if you fill out the form? That some of those leads are actually filled out by kids or people using the name of their pet gerbil or dog? That some of those leads use the names of deceased individuals? This is why these leads do not convert. Why waste time and money on them?

Marketing dollars are a precious commodity and need to be spent in a wise manner. The choice to spend needs to be one that offers a good return on your investment. Exclusive leads that are genuinely exclusive to you only are the best investment you can make. If you want to grow your agency, do not fall for the questionably exclusive leads, the 500 free leads or the shared leads to save money. In the end, you do not save money if you buy leads that are duds.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

If you are be wondering why it is important that people like you before they buy from you, you are forgetting that you would not buy something you wanted from someone you don’t like or trust, either. You would go get that same product or policy from someone else.

The fact is that doing business these days is as much about liking the sales agent as it is about getting a necessary product. In fact, those two things are inseparable from one another. If you forget that, you may find your business is not doing as well as it could. There is a good reason various communication platforms use the term “social.” Make building relationships with people your number one priority and even if your contact with customers is mainly online, it can make a big difference to occasionally pick up the phone and call someone personally.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive life insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Being an insurance agent means you need to be aware and responsive to all kinds of customers, what they need and want, and how they prefer to do business. Approaching a senior who eschews technology through electronic methods will probably not be effective. Deal with them in the manner in which they are used to doing business — personally, one-on-one, at a kitchen table, over a cup of coffee and cupcakes.

These days the personal touch and human connection is absent from most business transactions. Many deals are done online and the buyer and seller never see or meet one another. Sure the Internet has broadened our marketplace, but it has also made them impersonal. Selling insurance is about catering to your clients’ needs. Do that and you have a client for life.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive health insurance leads to agents across the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Certainly meetings with large groups are often fraught with ambushes along the way, but the best way to deal with a question out of the blue is to thank the individual for asking the question and ask if you can set up a personal meeting to go over those concerns. In other words, off topic questions may still lead to sales opportunities. You just have to be ready to go with the flow and recognize the opportunity to make another sale and educate another potential customer.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

But, what if you don’t have a list of leads? What if you are just starting out? What do you do? Even without a list of leads, you have plenty of things you can do to attract customers. Begin with webinars once a week and try to make sure you have at least 10 people on each webinar you host. Thirty would be better, but since you are just starting out, a realistic tally would be ten.

Actively encourage questions and feedback. Invite all those who participate to come back and bring a friend. Sessions should be packed with valuable, relevant information about various insurance products. It is important to use live case examples about times people’s insurance has paid off in a big way.

Personal anecdotes sell insurance. Sometimes it’s just that simple.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive health insurance leads to agents across the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

In order to move your agency toward being steady and financially stable, it is important to focus on one question: How many new people (potential customers) have seen and heard a full marketing presentation of your products? Make your sole focus marketing presentations, while someone else at your agency takes care of existing customers, and watch your bottom line blossom.

The only way to garner more insurance sales is to be creative, think like a buyer and offer what the customer needs, not what you want to sell. Push out of your comfort zone to do something different, radical, unexpected and see the results. Even an approach that gives you cold feet at first can surprise you if you give it a chance.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive health insurance leads to agents across the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

How do you manage your life insurance leads? Do you know what you want? Who you want to approach? Where you want to market your product? There is no sense in just trying out the latest and supposedly greatest marketing method without approaching it with caution and your own set of pertinent questions. No matter what kinds of leads you want, your leads’ qualifications are the most important pieces of information you need to know.

Where to start?

First, find out about your potential customers’ strong points. Find out what they earn and whether their income is due to increase over time. If people are up for raises or are due for promotions, you may able to offer them additional kinds of insurance services. Before you order leads, it’s important to figure out which of your products are suitable for the people in your stated demographics and their lifestyles.

You need to know what you want, where you want to market and how to approach the list of names you purchase from a lead generation company. It may help to sort all your list of leads by location, age, occupation or whatever criteria works for you. The idea is to group similar customers together to save marketing time. Each group may need a different marketing approach, and by testing multiple methods you use, you also get valuable information on what worked and what did not.

It can also be helpful to order your list from the top (the best lead) to the bottom (the least certain lead). That way you are not spending time on an “iffy” lead right off the bat.

These tricks and tips can help you make the most of your marketing time and dollars.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive life insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

This is another way that selling insurance can work very much like the multi-level marketing (MLM) model. The only way MLM systems grow and continue producing money is by exposing their products to new people every day. Sure, they take care of their existing and repeat customers, but without marketing to new people every single day that MLM company would stagnate.

If you want to take the “safe” rout by servicing only existing customers, that is a personal marketing decision. However, it has the potential to backfire. Only by stretching your wings will you learn to fly in uncertain weather, but still get to your destination (increasing your sales base) in good shape. Try it. You may find you like the updraft of multiple sales coming in.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive life insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Chasing leads is one of the most anxiety-causing tasks any insurance agent has to deal with on a daily basis. Word-of-mouth referrals? Direct email campaigns? Social media? What is the best route to ensure a steady flow of quality, qualified insurance leads? The simple answer is buying leads, but one should not rely on that alone. A combination of various different methods to garner leads is usually the best approach.

While referrals tend to be relatively lucrative, there is no guarantee that the people referred to you will like what you are selling. They may not need what you have, or they may want something you do not sell. That is the way it goes in this line of work. The surefire way to get leads that have the potential to grow your business, provided you work them properly, is to buy quality leads from a lead generation company.

Many agents have heard about lead generation companies. Some of the reviews are good, some not so good. That is fair enough. Not all lead generation companies are created equal and since they are not, it only makes good marketing sense to take the time to find a lead generation company that will work for you.
What do you need to know to make an informed decision before buying leads? The first thing is, if the company offers you 500 free leads to get you going, run. Leads that are free are free for a reason, and that reason is they are a waste of time.

This is not to say that if you are offered ten free leads that they are not worth trying, because they may give you an idea of the quality of leads on offer. It is a personal business decision, so go with what makes the most sense to you.

An important consideration is your budget. But, unfortunately cheap leads are usually only worth what you paid for them. Go for the better, and slightly higher-priced, leads. Those are the ones that pay off. Also keep your eyes open for hidden costs, such as monthly fees or long-term contracts. You also want to know more than just a person’s name and phone number. You need background information to make a sales call, and that information should include driving record and a brief medical history.

If you are going to buy leads from a lead generation company, find out the age of the leads. You want and need fresh ones. That means you want them in real time and quickly. Those are the leads that have the most potential to convert to sales. Always ask a lead generation company how they garner their leads. If the leads come from someone being convinced to fill out a form for an iPod or something like that, those are solicited leads and typically worthless.

However, if a potential customer has deliberately contacted a lead company and filled out a questionnaire asking for someone to contact them, this is a valuable lead.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Final expense leads are best worked right when they come in, because once someone has made up their mind that they need that type of insurance, they are more open minded about talking to an agent. While an agent can definitely source leads in any manner that works, often those bought from a lead generation company are the best bet. They are delivered in real time and pre-screened. That means the people asking for information are serious about buying.

It’s a common misconception that it is too expensive to buy final expense insurance leads because it’s not a hot market, and that leads in this area might not convert. While it is true that final expense insurance is not a popular product, and thus is a hard sell, it is not true that there are no hot leads in this niche. Such leads can easily be acquired from a reputable lead generation company. They just need the right agent to work them diligently and immediately.

After connecting with a reputable lead generation company, such as benepath.net, an agent can receive a number of benefits that have the potential to grow any agency. For instance: leads are in real time, and are usually ready to convert quickly. They are within the specified geographical area requested, and the potential buyers made the initial contact, a sure-fire signal they are serious and they understand the importance of final expense insurance. One could not ask for better leads.

It is no secret that the economy is ailing and health care is an issue for many. Finding a job to keep the family going is on many people’s minds, and yes, many are beginning to worry about the future. A final expense policy is one way to take care of the future for very little money. Final expense insurance is a very competitive industry niche and by pricing products accordingly, there can be very little trouble to be had in making conversions.

Frankly, the product can sell itself provided an agent points out the reality of funeral and burial expenses these days. Add to that the little understood fact that even if the deceased had a life insurance policy, it may take up to 60 days to be processed before the funds are released. Final expense insurance is a good stopgap to protect a family and by promoting these two features, among others, final expense leads become customers.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive life insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

The worst thing that can happen to any business, including an insurance agency, is to run out of sources for more leads. While social media is definitely a great place to look for leads, in order to convert leads on social media an agent must have a constant and reliable presence.

The specific platform used doesn’t matter, be it YouTube, Twitter, Facebook or any of the other multitudinous online ways to connect. It only matters that there is a message that reaches and resonates with potential customers. These social media have to be put to good use. Sure, being online is exposure, but if one is not online consistently and effectively, it affects the level of exposure negatively. In order to get leads from social media sources, an agent must be there, be counted, be effective and be visible.

Combine online and offline sources to garner leads, in addition to purchasing life insurance leads from a reputable and reliable lead generation company. The more sources taken advantage of, the better the business growth. An agent’s warm market, those he or she knows and does business with, compromise a body of people to start with, but who must not be hounded. After all, one has to live with relatives and continue doing business with doctors, dentists and hairdressers.

The point is that personal connections are likely to buy life insurance because they know the seller. There is a lesson in that observation. When these people read online material they tend to convert because they feel they know the person making the persuasive claim. The more personal relationships are developed and fostered, the more leads begin to crop up.

Even in today’s highly technological world, direct mail can, and does, return good leads. This is an investment of time and money, but if done properly, it may well pay off. Snail mail is a personal form of contact and makes the sender seem like a real person. It’s an old-fashion method of communication that many wish would return. Connect with that sense of nostalgia for more personal communications and more leads are bound to follow.

What is the common thread in all of these methods of marketing? Networking. It’s simple. It’s complex. And yet, it is all interconnected. It’s best to remember that a direct mail campaign can be accompanied with a campaign that isviable online. Be flexible, adaptable and creative and watch those networked life insurance leads roll in.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive life insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

This is why it is vitally important to have an email campaign that offers information in a clear and concise manner, in language that is unambiguous, and means what it says. Avoid using insurance jargon or underwriting concepts. People do not understand them and are not immediately interested in why an underwriter rates their insurance premium higher because they smoke. They just want the bottom line.

However, that kind of information does need to get out so that people do understand why smoker’s insurance rates are higher, or why an insurance company may decline to insure a stunt pilot. So, how do you communicate what you need to in a manner that people can assimilate in short blurbs? Simple: use FAQs. A frequently asked question section is usually something everyone checks out when they need more specific information. In your automated email, when linking back to your website, include a handy link to the FAQ section. That’s smart marketing.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

In lockstep with good content, make the design of the email interesting, eyecatching and yes, relevant to your audience. If you are creative enough, your mailing list of existing and prospective customers start to look forward to what is coming next. While you may not achieve a 100 percent open rate, you could come pretty close by being a smart email marketer.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

You know the merge fields in your system? USE THEM. And, if you don’t want to use all of them, then at the very least, use the first name field. This small inclusion can make a mass email sound like a personal message. And another item that is very important to note is do NOT use a “no-reply” email address. Not only is it frustrating, it is the epitome of impersonal. People want to know they are talking to a real person – period.

Do not bury your database with emails. Experiment to see how many emails are opened when material is sent out. If the open ratio declines with an increase in emails, dial things down and communicate less. The old adage that less is more is applicable here, as your leads will put more stock in your communications if they feel you only reach out when you have relevant information.

Finally, make smart tweaks to a campaign once you have launched it. Don’t let it run without making any changes in response to the feedback you get from the system, unless it is such a stellar campaign that it requires no changes. Very few campaigns fall into that category.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

When automation is used to keep in touch on a regular basis with your client base, make sure what is sent is interesting, relevant, funny, touching or tells a story. In other words, make your communications lively and one-on-one, like you are having a cup of coffee with your customers. Use your emails to cross and upsell, without being blatant about it. Yes, you’re in business to sell insurance, but there’s no newd to be beat people over the head about what you sell.

Educate, entertain, elucidate and endure – the four Es of email marketing – and you have a winning outcome.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive health insurance leads to agents across the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

This relates to another point anyone using email marketing needs to know: how to take an ethical approach to collecting email lists. Provide customers with an opt-in option, offering them the choice of signing up for a newsletter or other content. If you automatically collect names without asking, you are asking for trouble from angry people who resent being solicited without providing their consent.

Insurance agents also love automated email software for its ability to multitask. A well-run program can market more than one product or service at a time, send out a series of emails and gather everything into one place for analysis. With extra marketing time for other tasks and multifaceted approach to getting your information to potential clients, a well-managed email marketing campaign can definitely cut costs and even boost sales.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive health insurance leads to agents across the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Timing is everything when it comes to marketing a product, and that is especially applicable for the insurance industry. Marketing Medicare to a 20 year old just does not work as well as marketing to those a few years short of 65-year-old, and for them you are often marketing Medicare supplements to, well, supplement the holes in the original Medicare insurance.

Know your product. Know when to market it. Know who to market it to, and your agency is bound to attract customers in large numbers.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

The one thing to remember when working with leads is that having options widens your chances of converting even more clients into long-term customers. So it’s a good idea to use more than one method of gathering leads so you can see what works the best for you. Automated email campaigns can get leads automatically, and you can even program them to send information to customers, and other contacts, over either a predetermined period of time or at certain times of the day.

As simple and useful as this concept is, it does not work the leads for you. You must still return phone calls, set up appointments and send out information.And because the email leads are not pre-screened, you may find yourself spending more time on figuring out which leads are solid, while weeding out the leads that are fake.

While this system does save you marketing time, you must still stay on top of campaigns, changing the content of your emails to reflect what you are currently offering, and to keep all your messages fresh and relevant. Keep tweaking the system and over time, you may be able to build a significant customer base in conjunction with the customers garnered from a lead generation company.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive health insurance leads to agents across the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Medicare supplement leads, whether they are exclusive or not, require some fact checking first. For example, a fair number of lead generation companies suggest they are offering real-time leads, but in reality, they are only selling information garnered from a generic health insurance form. Anyone over 65 that fills out an online form is fair game and considered to be a lead. And while they technically are leads, they may not be leads looking for Medicare supplement quotes.

Many online lead generation companies claim they offer real-time Medicare supplement leads, and some even go as far as to claim they are exclusive leads. How does one sort through all the claims and make a determination about their veracity? And how are the leads generated?

To effectively build a thriving insurance company, working with a lead generation company can help to navigate these questions. Such a company provides leads using a dedicated Medicare supplement insurance form, which specifically asks if the individual is looking for Medicare supplements, if they are looking for Medicare Advantage or Medigap, and if they are already covered by Medicare Parts A & B. Those receiving these leads know right away that these potential customers are quite serious about buying Medicare supplements and calling them is easy with the information provided.

Another important point to consider is how the lead generation company gathers their leads. Interested parties should check to see if the company garners their Medigap, Medicare or Medicare Advantage leads the same way they generate health insurance leads. If they do blanket marketing (search and email marketing) for people wanting “health” insurance, this is an ineffective strategy that will likely generate dud leads. Health insurance is not the same thing as Medicare supplement insurance.

The most desirable tools in an agent’s arsenal are Medicare supplement leads from a lead generation company that uses a dedicated Medicare form. Anything else is a waste of time and money.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive medicare leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

An example of insurance products that hold little appeal to people is final life expenses. This is a demographic that needs to be approached when the timing is right for the customer.

Typically you’d target this niche by age and health factors. An example would be a 67-year-old male with diabetes about to go to hospital for a possible amputation. This individual may be very interested in final expense insurance. In other words, if you’re buying targeted leads, target older individuals with health issues. You can filter for those kinds of leads by asking your lead generation company.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

About the only way to build a truly successful insurance agency is to convert a continuous stream of leads into customers. Expanding business, and doing it in a cost-effective and efficient manner, is a top priority in an environment where cold calling and chasing relatives is no longer sufficient.

There are a number of ways to source leads, but which are the good, bad and ugly? Where does one go to buy leads that, if worked diligently, do convert?

The main way to ensure that leads are solid and won’t amount to merely chasing people that six other agents have already called is to buy them from an industry leader in lead generation, such as benepath.net. Working with a trusted source eliminates bad leads, recycled leads and fake leads.

Today’s world is a fast-paced, hectic milieu, so time is of the essence when connecting with a potential lead and beginning the process of conversion. Instead of chewed up leads that cost a lot and offer no return on an investment, it is shrewder to opt for exclusive insurance leads, ones that definitely have the potential to pay off. The exclusive leads come only to one agent, in real time, and if worked as soon as they arrive, can create a sales record that will be the envy of the office by the end of the month.

For precision and accuracy within an acceptable narrow parameter, one should deal only with a lead generation company that has been in the business for years, verifies its leads, pre-screens them and ensures the customer gets them as fast as they arrive. In other words, one should deal with a company that only collects leads who are serious about needing insurance.

Sign up for leads from a lead generation company that offers productive real-time leads, not old and cold leads. Marketing industry experts have estimated that the value of a lead drops dramatically after two days. The caller may lose interest in buying a policy or they might buy coverage from another provider. With real-time leads, an insurance agent can call a client almost the instant they complete the online lead form and well before they lose interest.

Being on top of virtual leads instantly is a proven method of strengthening a sales record.
Investing in a lead generation company that offers a wide variety of filters to cull out “iffy” leads is a good indicator that the company understands the value of time in an industry with none to spare. Filtering directly targets clients that are likely to buy a policy and removes leads that are not worth working (e.g. leads with pre-existing conditions).

Though filters are not usually free, they are worth their weight in gold, helping to select the best possible potential customers genuinely interested in the offered policies. For qualified leads that are ready to go, an insurance agent’s best bet is a lead generation.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive health insurance leads to agents across the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Hate writing? Hire it out. If you want the exposure and want to try the magazine route, but think your writing leaves something to be desired, get a contract writer to handle it. Give them your idea, the information they need to know to write the piece, and any other sources they might want. Then get out of the way and let them do their job. This is one of the smartest marketing moves you could make, getting intelligent and well-written content done for you. That’s what ghostwriters are for and they can truly make your reputation.

Growing your agency by being a smart article marketer is one of the easier ways to attract potential new customers. Good articles that are informative and talk about something people are interested in garner many potential converts.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive life insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

A savvy insurance agent knows that cold calling is dead, long live telemarketing leads? Right? While that is certainly an accurate observation, it is also one to be closely examined. Buying leads is a good idea. Buying shared leads, not so much.

Shared leads are what the term implies – leads shared with up to seven or more other agents. A buyer of such leads has to wonder who is going to get the customer on the line first and make a sale, and who is going to make money on shared leads? It’s usually not the frustrated agent who finds hostile people on the end of the phone, because those six other agents have likely already called them.

But many mentors have said shared leads were less expensive and if worked correctly could pay off. Indeed, they are less expensive, and if worked correctly, they could pay off. The reality, however, is that other agents often work shared leads before a new buyer ever receives them. This amounts to so many wasted marketing dollars on leads that have already been chewed up. Many agents do not find that to be a smart way to make money, and they are correct.

A marketing plan needs to have a viable way to make money. Working shared leads is not a viable way to make money. Working exclusive leads is. Exclusive really does mean exclusive to one buyer. It is important to ask the relevant lead generation companywhat their definition of exclusive leads happens to be. In order to make money, it needs to be defined as exclusive to one person, and not exclusive to all those on a shared lead list.

Much marketing hype speaks of how customers should come to an agent because they want something and set out to find their great products. It is advisable to go for guaranteed gold and get leads from a reputable lead generation company. Those leads do pay off, if well worked.

Cold calling is a fair preference, if worked. However, it generally does not suit a busy insurance agent who is trying to grow business and customer base. Listening to personal instincts and intuitions about what works for one’s own situation yields better outcomes. Just because Johnny Smith down the street at ABD Agencies likes shared leads and they seem to work for him, does not mean they will work for anyone else.

An approach to marketing needs to be as unique as the agent. Marketing is a reflection of those who produce it. Owning it and making it work for customers is a crucial aspect of business.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

If you want to educate your readers about Medicare and Medicare supplements, just spell it out in small, easy to understand chunks. The technical details are not what people are looking for. Their main interest in Medicare is how it benefits them. The technical end of things is up to you to handle behind the scenes.

Most people want the bottom line first, which is usually how something benefits them. Next, they want to know how much it is going to cost. Open enrollment and other insurance issues, such as the donut conundrum, are at first not comprehensible to most. Break it down, walk them through it and keep it simple. If you can capture people’s attention with well thought out, easy to read articles, you are one step ahead of the competition.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

The reason you use your articles in your own blogs and websites is because those media are what you are marketing and you need to build your own traffic and credibility, not build someone else’s. If you want to take your articles to the next level, then look for a website that does exclusive syndication and always needs fresh content. Write it right and you could be well on the road to building a very nice following of potential insurance converts.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

There is no sense in writing great material and then squandering it in the wrong places where your target market won’t see it. Even if some do, they may not act on it if it is poorly positioned. You need to aim your best pieces where they count. The days of just putting anything up on the Internet and getting people to read it and convert are long gone. It’s a completely new marketing landscape online and you need to not only be aware of it, but also to make sure you know how to use this brave new world in the right way.

For one thing (and it’s a big thing) you must write about issues that people really care about. For example, health: articles with real live medical cases and how insurance helped the individuals definitely get people’s attention. You don’t have to reveal patient’s names, just use the case information and explain how insurance helped them manage their bills. Make sure to write this in a manner that people find engaging. If it’s stilted and awkward, people click away. Don’t know how to write? Hire it out. It’s one of the best investments you can make with your marketing dollars.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive group health insurance leads. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377

Agents wanting to ensure they have a constant source of income due to leads turning into customers should aim to sell highly lucrative group health insurance policies. This class of policies are typically considered to be gold. Of course, the sales do not just “happen.” Any leads need to be worked to be converted.

However, before putting the cart before the horse, the first step to finding lucrative leads is to know where to look for the leads. To that end, agents should know the market by staying on top of it constantly. Looking at all angles and considering creative ways to sell group health insurance is essential. The fact is everyone needs medical insurance and that includes those who work for companies offering health insurance as a benefit to their employees.

The market is not individuals. It is a group of people working for businesses that offer health insurance. These companies may be small or large, but they still want a reasonable price for group health insurance that does not put them in the poorhouse. That is where This is where expertise comes into play. An agent knows which policies suit each business. This strength, a knowledge of the market and customers, easily translates into ability to close a sale.

It’s quite usual for potential group health insurance customers to take time to make a decision about buying a policy. One should follow up consistently, with good information and stay in touch, even if it does seem to feel like nagging the potential buyer. Part of a good sales strategy is to stay on top of the mind of a potential customer.

Without follow up,agents stand to lose out when another picks up where the first left off. Persistence in contacting leads, rather than insistence, is key. Being there when a potential client needs to know something before making a buying decision is a smart move. To that end, agents should have or cultivate the confidence in their ability to sell and service the group health insurance market.

Businesses not only want a good policy, they want a good agent who knows what they are doing and can help them with any issues or questions they may have. It’s best to be the solution before a problem arises. Scheduling appointments and keeping them, while being willing to be flexible with changes on the part of a business owner can go a long way. Their life is often not their own and an appointment planned may not happen due to an unexpected event.

An insurance professional should fit into the client’s schedule, not the other way around. Being in the insurance business means being where and when a customer needs assistance. Following that dictum, knowing policies, and staying a step ahead of customers needs can help anyone to stay ahead of competition.

Benepath is the leading provider of exclusive health insurance leads to agents across the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.net or call 1-866-368-0377