The training process for life insurance could be described as a fatal shock treatment that is injected into captive training systems for insurance agents. You are full of anticipation and money when you enter insurance training. You will be amazed at how fast training can become stressful with the captive agent system.
I can’t wait to see you Monday morning for the amazing salesperson acceptance interview. It was fate or chance that you got hired. You fell into the fatal life insurance training trap, unbeknownst to you.
Your sales manager appears to be a great guy with 12-15 salespeople under his wing. Captive insurance agent training systems initially focus on teaching you daily how superior your products can be. You may even think your products are almost self-selling. Another agent discovers that the life insurance training of your sales manager does not include the provision of leads for people to sell to. This is a serious mental wound. You can dig your own leads and dig your own grave.
Your manager can turn from a great boss to a slave driver. This is the worst part of your life-insurance training. You are required to write a list with 100 leads under the “all agents must do so” law. These names include relatives, friends, neighbours, former work acquaintances, as well as fellow churchgoers. This is the new revival plan. There should be plenty of sales opportunities. These 100 “sales leads” are what your manager calls them. These are just names and addresses of people that you only know or have contact with. Your “leads”, as a result, make more “pity sales,” than people who want or need what you sell.
You can see the clouds of career death every night as you lay down to sleep. Within a year and half, 85% salespeople have self-terminated, meaning their career is over. You will notice that the office is occupied by younger agents with updated phone directories. You feel strange, eerie sensations almost like you are in the twilight zone. It’s almost like a funeral parlor. It’s not you alone, it’s like a plague that sweeps across all helpless salespeople.
The truth smells like rotten meat. Where is your real life insurance training? Are those leads that you were given in the interview still there? Your sales manager scolds you for not getting enough referrals and not speaking to enough people. You asked for more “insurance agent training” and now you get it. A death valley phone directory is provided for free to help you start cold calling for leads. Your sales manager will crush your ego when you refuse to see them. He or she may say that if you were persistent enough, you might have gotten a lead. Your manager, agency and company start to believe you should sink six feet below the ground.
Your sales manager is behind closed doors constantly interviewing new salespeople. He should be working with you on insurance training and generating leads for his other salespeople. It is easy to see that new agents drop faster than a fly. But, those who fail are left behind without a funeral. Fresh bodies keep getting hired. It’s amazing how it seems that every time you go into the office, there are old acquaintances gone.
You are losing your ability to deal with the hard facts. No matter how skilled a salesperson, if you don’t have leads, sales will be impossible. You have two options: surrender or borrow $1,000 from your family member if you find yourself in a minefield. To make money in sales you must invest your own seed money. This will allow you to prosper and survive. Leads are what you need to sell. Not a random phone list for prospecting. These are all things that you didn’t know before.
Here’s how to defeat the captive system
It’s very simple to set up your lead system. You will get more sales leads if you have a good number and a decent quality lead. Look for a list broker to help you get quality leads into your business. A list broker can help you get a 2,500-name list of quality prospects. He can connect you with a combination large mailer/printer. To maximize your response, the person who arranges your sales pieces can help you with the wording. Your message is printed on 2,500 postcards at a fraction of the cost.
FINALLY GETTING RESPONSES. Send 1,250 sales materials now. Your next batch of 1,250 sales pieces should arrive 10-12 days later. The initial response to your sales letter should result in anywhere between 12 and 20 interest reply leads. These people are eager and ready to meet with you. 7 appointments equals 4 sales and $2,500.00 commissions. You can quickly pay $100 off your loan and then invest $1,000 more before the next batch of leads arrives. You will persevere and find a way to stay alive.
The first step is to dig yourself out of your grave. Two sales miracles are guaranteed at this point. As you gain more experience, your appointment rate will increase. This increases sales and pushes up the average sale amount.
Your sales manager, agency and company were the devil. They were against you. They will take all of your business and future compensation if you quit.
Your SAVIOR WAS GOOD LEADS.