For selling Final Expense face to face, when it comes to final expense insurance leads, the golden standard is the final expense direct mail leads. Keep in mind that all final expense insurance leads tend to differ in quality and price because all leads are different. When it comes down to it, you can make sales off of just about any type of lead out there. It’s going to save you a lot of time and effort if you use leads that we already know have been proven to work.

I find it interesting how just about half of the agents that we contract seem to have a hard time grasping the concept of paying for direct mail leads. After all, they tend to be pretty expensive. It just seems like everyone wants to reinvent the wheel though and try something new! This is very important as you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble.

Take the advice of someone that has already gone through the process, and is very successful. My experience with agents that want to cut corners and buy telemarketing leads or internet leads instead of direct mail leads is that they often realize that for a few dollars more, they could have had quality final expense leads. Just putting that out there so you don’t waste your time and effort while trying to save a few bucks! The final expense facebook leads are good too but you still want the final expense direct mail leads to be mixed in with your final expense leads.

I bring this up because everyone likes to save money and get better deals on leads. We all want to cut corners. The problem with buying cheap final expense insurance leads is that the return rate may seem more cost effective. Trust me, it’s not. At least not in the long run! I don’t know about you but my time is valuable, therefore, I don’t want to waste it with crappy final expense leads. The last thing I want to do is pay half the price for final expense leads that aren’t that good and ends up making my life harder. Final Expense direct mail leads are the most effective type of final expense insurance leads for marketing in our industry.

Keep this in mind! If I have 20 final expense direct mail leads for $600 and you have 40 final expense telemarketing leads that you paid $580 for, I guarantee that I can make more sales and more annualized premium per sale off of my 20 Direct Mail final expense leads than you will ever make off of your 40 telemarketing leads. So here is my question to you. How can you not afford to work direct mail final expense insurance leads as your main final expense insurance leads? If you could get plenty of final expense facebook leads, that would be one thing but it just isn’t that simple.

Another lead that is getting a lot of press these days is the final expense Facebook leads, and for good reason. Our experience with these final expense insurance leads was that they are good, in addition to being a higher premium final expense insurance lead. The problem is that it’s hard as heck to generate final expense Facebook leads, especially here in Florida. At least, it’s hard to get enough of this type of final expense insurance leads in your normal final expense sales area.

Facebook now has a system set up where you can actually create your own ads thus having the ability to generate your own final expense leads. You can target the market that we want to see while doing it from your own home. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news.  You will be extremely limited on how many final expense insurance leads you can get while working any given area. The last thing you want to do is depend on final expense insurance leads that are hard to get. The same goes for final expense telemarketing leads.

I do suggest trying them if you have the extra funds and are willing to travel. Mix some of them into your weekly final expense direct mail leads order. To me, this makes perfect sense especially if you are looking for more ways to be efficient. If you are limited on funds, just stick with direct mail. Because this lead is so popular, consequently we offer our agents Facebook leads.

What a lot of agents do, is mix live final expense telemarketing leads in with their direct mail leads. They also use final expense telemarketing leads when they don’t have direct mail final expense leads or use them when we travel. This is a trick that both new and seasoned agents are doing. Using final expense telemarketing leads as a main or primary lead will only work temporarily. That’s if it even works for you at all!

There is just not enough data available for a field agent to have 15 or 20 new final expense telemarketing leads every week. You will run through the data quickly because there is just not enough to work with. It will become very difficult for any final expense insurance leads vendor to keep up a regular order of these type of leads and you will find yourself with too much free time.

There is good news. We work with multiple final expense insurance lead vendors and can often offer a $20 final expense lead for under $10 each. Yeah, that’s a sweet bang for your buck!

We have the final expense insurance leads!

On a daily basis, we speak with agents about the type of final expense insurance leads that they are using. They always ask about the cheapest leads. They want to know if we can get them avatar or live telemarketing leads. Understand guys, there is a reason that these type of leads are cheap compared to direct mail leads! I’m just going to say it. Direct Mail is Always going to be the strongest and and most viable lead. At least in our industry!

All the top producing final expense agents in the country use them. Yep, all the producers are on direct mail leads. Not only are they on direct mail leads, but they are all on weekly fixed cost direct mail leads. Yes, it’s important to use the right type of final expense insurance leads in order to be successful.

Here’s the bottom line. It’s always best to know what you’re getting and how much it costs.  The last think you want to do, is go through all the trouble that we went through, when we first got into final expense sales. It was tough getting leads. I had to place weekly mail drops that never seemed to pan out. Sometimes I paid $25 for the leads but often would pay over $100 for for each direct mail lead.

Here is why direct mail is king and always will be king!

First of all, the prospect actually opens the envelope that the lead card comes in. Then they read it. Next, they write down some of their information on that card! Then they have to stick in in their mailbox! When you call a week or 2 later, or even months later, they will remember the card. When you knock on the door and show them the card with their handwriting, they are absolutely going to remember it. This is why the direct mail lead is the most dependable way to sell final expense and get in front of more interested prospects than with any other lead.

So, what is wrong with using telemarketing lead for selling face to face? Absolutely nothing! Actually, if all you can afford is telemarketing leads, then you should buy them. You’ll make sales if you know how to work them especially if they are quality leads. Just plan on traveling a lot like I do.

Look, if you’re already selling belly to belly, grinding it out to make ends meet, you are costing yourself a lot of money and sales by not using direct mail leads. Mariana and I were getting desperate to survive when we turned the corner. I really did have to sell off a bunch of stuff including part of my gun collection.

We did what it took to get on direct mail leads. When we put everything we had on the table, and then turned that corner, it changed our lives. Just to be clear, we already were convinced that direct mail was the best lead for final expense sales and knew that we would be successful.

UPDATE, Avatar leads are now illegal, even if you are told different. Do NOT Use or Purchase them unless you want to risk your license! There are companies that are selling them and saying that they are not really illegal. Yes, I know there is some controversy about this topic. Here is my take on this subject. If there is a chance of being sued, then it’s not worth the risk!

There are attorneys that literally have several phone lines set up to trap illegal lead vendors and area waiting for the calls. I personally know a lead vendor that was sued when an agent made a sale off his lead and both he and the insurer had to pay. The lawyer sued the agent that made the sale, the final expense leads vendor that sold the lead, and also the insurance carrier that was sold. This is what you are risking when you use final expense insurance leads that are questionable. This is why we shelved our avatar lead program.

In my opinion, most internet leads are usually just garbage. Unless you have access to final expense insurance leads that are not being resold to any other agents! That is a very unique lead but is rarely seen in our industry. My experience is that when they are not resold, these type of final expense insurance leads are just as good as direct mail leads, or even better. That is why we have a website with the sole intention of generating strong final expense insurance leads. Remember, anytime you are purchasing a lead that is costing a few dollars, it’s important to think about why the lead is so cheap.

Fact! Most internet leads are resold to multiple agents. The internet lead vendors make a lot of money selling this type of lead, because of the resell ratio. Again, it is my honest opinion that you should not waste any money on these type of final expense insurance leads, as they are surely a time consuming waste of money.

With good internet generated final expense insurance leads, that are not resold, my main issue is that we can not get enough of them. We are limited locally, so these leads are really not the best way to market for field agents. There would be a couple leads a month in each area that would tend to trickle in. It would be great if we can figure out a way to get more leads per county. This would give us contact with even more final expense prospects. Nationally, internet final expense insurance leads can be a game changer.

If you have your own website, and are getting leads every day, you can sell final expense over the phone. Not that I would ever do that. Final expense life insurance or burial insurance is not the type of thing that is best sold over the phone because the persistency and placement for this product is low. When it comes to selling over the phone, I can think of much better products than final expense.

As I mentioned before, the big problem with buying internet leads is that the internet lead vendors are reselling these leads to multiple agents. They don’t care if that final expense insurance lead was a sale or not. Our experience with big internet lead companies is that they don’t seem to be the most honest people in the industry. Again, there is a reason that these type of final expense insurance leads only costs around $3 each.

I only bring this up again as there is a good thing about mixing different types of leads with your weekly direct mail leads. By doing this, you will actually end up in front of different people. A guy that won’t mail in a final expense insurance lead card might fill out a form online. Someone that won’t take a call might fill out a direct mail lead card. Again, I only suggest trying different types of leads if you have the extra money to spend and you are already on fixed cost direct mail, final expense insurance leads.

We have our “lead web site” for a reason. As long as we spend a little time working on it every day, it will continue to be a final expense insurance lead making machine. I spoke with an agent a few weeks ago that has several web sites. He gets lots and lots of leads from his website. Apparently,  he believes that he will never have to buy a lead again. The only thing that concerns me is that he is selling final expense over the phone. The placement and retention of selling final expense over the phone is horrible. There is still a part of me that wonders if there isn’t a way to sell FE over the phone where the placement and retention is good.

Think about it! Wouldn’t it be nice to have a website that costs a few hours a week of your time, along with a few hundred dollars a year to maintain, that you are getting final expense insurance leads from, every single day? If it’s the right people, maybe you could sell final expense through a screen share. This is the only idea that I can think of that could increase persist-ency and placement, therefore making it worth the effort. The market we would have to target would be a little higher end than the usual final expense clientele. When it comes down to it, reinventing the wheel is probably a bad idea. That’s why I will gladly stick to selling final expense burial insurance on a face to face, belly to belly basis.

In my opinion, final expense telemarketing leads are getting harder and harder to get. They’re also losing their quality. It just seems like every agency and their brother are calling the same people week in and week out. There is no way of knowing how many different final expense insurance lead vendors are calling your area for different agents. This burns through the data and makes it harder and harder to get these final expense insurance leads. The idea of the prospect speaking with a live United States final expense sales telemarketing leads marketer sounds good on paper, but these final expense insurance leads do tend to cost almost as much as the final expense direct mail leads. That’s why we have decided to start generating our own final expense telemarketing leads. Now we can control how many final expense insurance leads are generated and where. This makes it possible for us to make sure that the areas are not over worked.

Now, when it comes to selling final expense over the phone, the main leads are final expense television leads, internet leads, and telemarketer leads. With final expense telemarketing leads, you get a bunch of them cheap, put them into a dialer, and let the dialer do the work. Again, the Avatar leads are now illegal so forget about them! Thankfully, you can get cheap final expense telemarketing leads to make final expense sales with.

You can purchase live transfer final expense television leads. These are folks that are watching the TV commercial right now, are calling in, and you are answering the phone. There is no way it can get better than this for telephone sales. The problem is that the lead vendors that sell these final expense insurance leads, can’t guarantee that you won’t get 10 calls at the same time. It will happen. This is why they are better to use and are more cost effective, if you are working with a small group of agents. The last thing I want to do is make a sale, hang up the phone, and see that I missed 7 calls and got only 2 voice messages. Or worse, not make a sale with the same results! The final expense insurance leads vendors have no choice but to charge you for all the leads, as they did their job.

The big telesales companies actually are set up with voicemail for the leads that come in where there is no agent ready for the call. These agencies or insurance marketing organizations also have a system in place where someone can call back the missed calls to make sure they speak with a final expense sales agent. Having these systems in place is a must for final expense telephone sales to be successful, not that I would sell final expense over the phone! As I said earlier, the retention and placement for final expense sales over the phone, is terrible compared to most face to face sales. It doesn’t matter what kind of final expense insurance leads you are working.

I wrote about direct mail leads, avatar leads, live tele market leads, and TV leads because these are the most common leads for our market and I have had success with all of them. If you are wanting to try other types of final expense insurance leads, go for it. Just don’t try to reinvent the wheel! Being on a fixed cost direct mail lead program is extremely important for your success.

Very few agents are able to make it off of working other types of leads. Remember, we have been selling life insurance for years and understand the final expense market well. Without proper training, leads, and commission levels, it’s going to be that much more difficult and harder for you to succeed in our business or to make a six figure income. We are here to make this whole transition easier and I personally enjoy helping both new and seasoned agents.

If you are flat out busted or are not willing to invest a few hundred bucks a week into a good final expense insurance leads program, you can always get a door knocking list. There are a bunch of final expense list vendors like List Shack that can help you. They can actually categorize the list in a way so that you can walk down the street and door knock each house, knowing the owners name.

The list vendor can also make this lead more practical and precise for you. You can target 50-80 year olds or any age you want. You can also target approximate household income and use other filters. Filters are important because they help you separate the typical final expense prospects from people that have no use for our product. The last thing that I want to do is spend time marketing a product to the wrong prospect. Having multiple filters will make it that much easier to prospect when you are working our market and door knocking a street at a time.

If you’d like a copy of the script that I use for setting appointments, are interested in our final expense insurance leads programs, or are interested in some of the highest commission levels in the industry, go ahead and fill out the contact form. If you have any questions about a different type of final expense insurance lead that I didn’t mention in this article, please ask me about it. I will probably tell you what I have been saying over and over. You should be on fixed cost direct mail final expense insurance leads first, and then can try other leads when you have extra money for that. We look forward to sharing our experience with you and I look forward to speaking with you.

Final Expense Appointment Setting Script 

Hello “Name of prospect”, this is __________, how are you today?

Great, now “Name of prospect”, the reason for my call today is that you recently wrote down your information on a little card and mailed it into my office about the 2018 Benefit Plans for “State” Residents…  and the reason I’m calling, is to verify the information you sent us.

Now, it says that your age is___ Is that correct?  and your address is___ Is that correct?  And your spouse’s age is___, is that correct?

Now, I just need to meet with you and your spouse for about 5-10 minutes to see what you qualify for, and I’m going to be in your area “day”, and I have an opening to stop by between “time” and “time”, how’s that with you, OK!!!

Alright! Now, I need you to grab a pen and paper so I can give you some important information.  Are you ready? My name is _______.  And I will see you “day” at “time”, and please put that down on your calendar or refrigerator and make sure your spouse is there. 

Great, now are there any guard gates or locked gates or big dogs that I need to deal with when I arrive?

Perfect, now I appreciate your time on the phone and I look forward to meeting with you “day” at “time”. Have a great day and we’ll see you then!