Insurance Sales – Final Expense – How to Become a Top Producer
Did you know that less than 10% of the American Work Force will make over $100,000 this year? One of the things I love about final expense sales, is that our industry allows the right person, with the right work ethic, to be in that top 10% of income earners. In this article, I’m going to share with you exactly what it will take, Soup to Nuts, for you to be super successful. That way you can be part of the top 10% earners at final expense Insurance Sales.
What does it take for Insurance Sales success?
Insurance sales, especially our business, final expense insurance sales, is a great way to make a lot of money, for the right person, with the right work ethic. Top producing final expense agents earn a six-figure income and have very nice residuals. We create a lifeline of clients that can be cross-sold later, with Medicare and other products too. You can be super successful in our industry by simply following the directions that I’m about to give you right here, right now. The best way to start off in our business and increase your chances of success, is to make sure you’re contracting with an insurance agency that has all the tools that you’ll need. Please allow me to give you 3 things that you’ll absolutely want your up-line to have, otherwise the odds for being successful will be against as you’ll already be starting off by working on an uneven playing field!
- The first-year commission levels for your primary carrier, should not be lower than 100% for Life Insurance sales.
- You want to have access to multiple lead options including final expense Facebook leads, telemarketer leads, and Live Transfers for selling final expense.
- The insurance agency that you’re appointed through should have a sales training platform with videos, webinars, and regular live training calls.
Final Expense Agent Ripoffs
Your first-year commissions for the primary final expense carriers, need to be at 100% or higher, like they are for the agents selling on our team. If you’re at a 70 or 80% contract, you’re probably getting hosed, unless you have someone that is working with you, and training you daily, face to face. It should be in an office type of setting, and they should be giving you ride-a longs, so they’re teaching everything and spending a lot of time with you. If this is the case, as far as I’m concerned, it’s only fair that they share in your commissions. Remember, this is a career with high income potential. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable that you have less than 100% first year commissions, as we all have to pay our dues when new to Insurance Sales!
For selling final expense over the phone, there are a lot of companies that tend to start agents at really low commission levels. Even worse, most of these big companies will not allow the agent vesting for 2 to 4 years. In my opinion, this is disgraceful and unethical in every definition of the word. These companies boast about their success rates but in the end, it’s usually the agency that ends up having success. Not the agent! To me, it makes no sense if your first year commission level is under 100% for telesales, unless you are getting live transfers for free. Think about it this way. If your first year commission is around 50%, and you actually make 3 or 4 sales each week, you still won’t even take home $50,000 each year.
Insurance Sales Agent Leads
For insurance sales, face to face, they need to have a fixed cost direct mail leads program. Want to be a top earner? The only way that will happen is by working the right combination of weekly leads. It’s also imperative that you have new direct mail leads every single week. This will be invaluable to your success! The top earners on our sales team are working a combination of Final Expense Direct Mail Leads, along with a weekly batch of Facebook Leads. They’re really talented at getting referrals too. With direct mail leads, you’re able to target the exact zip codes that you want to work in. This makes the extra cost worth it. With Final Expense Facebook Leads, you’ll pay less per lead and the closing rate is almost as good as Direct Mail.
Final expense Facebook leads are the best and most affordable lead to work for new face to face agents. You won’t be able to target exact zip codes like with direct mail leads. You’ll need to work a radius of 25 to 50 miles from the exact Cities you are selling in! This is the type of thing that a good insurance sales agency can help you with. What I actually do with the agents selling final expense with us, is help them to find the zip codes that have the better demographics for our clients. This will help you to increase the sales percentages, as it’s always going to be easier to target the better zip codes, and leave out the ones that are tougher to sell in. Again, the only way to target the best demographics is with the more expensive final expense direct mail leads.
Final Expense Telephone Insurance Sales
Since the pandemic, more and more companies are suddenly coming out with a telesales platform. There was a time, years ago when I though I wanted to be a call-center owner. Well, it only took a few months to realize I was just an overpaid babysitter and that management was just not for me. That’s why we work with independent life insurance agents. At our agency, we took our telesales call center platform and made it available for agents to sell from home. I decided if we were going to do this, we would put the agent first, and everything else would fall right into place. Well, I was right. We don’t babysit or do a lot of hand holding. Any insurance sales agent who has had even some limited experience selling life insurance, can use our platform.
As I mentioned earlier, most companies tend to start their agents at really low commission levels. They usually have their agents working Final Expense Facebook leads, which in is fine if you don’t have access to Live Inbound TV Commercial leads. The issue with facebook and Telemarket leads, is that you can only get half of those people on the phone. Most companies have put together some cheesy presentation that is a few pages long and that only works with the “low hanging fruit”. For success selling final expense over the phone, you need 3 things. We have all three available for you, right now.
- Competitive products with good/High commissions.
- Quality leads of people that are interested in buying final expense life insurance
- A solid presentation that builds lots and lots of rapport and makes it easy for insurance sales
Final Expense Training
Your final expense insurance agency will also need to have a training platform set up, like the one that we have. The idea is to have access to all the basics, at your fingertips, whenever you need it. This is why our agents have access to a training program that includes videos and webinars of me teaching exactly, word for word, everything. You’ll see how I make my presentation, overcome objections, do field underwriting, and even appointment setting and door knocking leads. But this is just the start. Our platform includes a weekly training webinar along with a monthly online training boot camp for insurance sales. Anyone with the bare minimum of life insurance sales experience can hop onto our system, and start selling final expense quickly.
As a newby at insurance sales, you’re definitely going to have questions and need help while you’re in the field. It’s important that you can get help, anytime you need it. Especially when you’re sitting down with your potential clients, your prospects. Just make sure that no matter what agency you are working with, your upline manager is the type of person that will answer the phone. You need someone that will be there for you, when it counts. Especially if he knows you’re in the field selling. I always tell our new agents, if you’re going to be in the field tomorrow, just text me today and let me know. If I see your name pop up on my caller ID, I’ll drop everything to answer. You may need help to make the sale, have questions with underwriting, etc.
Let’s talk about committing to selling final expense!
The Lack of commitment, will most likely guarantee that you never make the big bucks, and actually, without it, you’ll most likely fail all together. It’s important to be committed in the 3 major ways that I’m going to share with you below. Why is this important? Well, let’s just think about it. If you’re not committed one hundred percent, why would you be successful selling final expense? I mean, if you spend $100,000 to open up your very own Starbucks coffee franchise, aren’t you going to be there all the time, doing everything possible to insure your success? It only makes sense to treat your final expense sales business the same way. Remember, we can make the same amount of money that the guy makes, at his local Starbucks franchise. The big difference, is that you don’t have to spend but a few thousand dollars to get started in insurance sales.
Financial commitment! Look, direct mail leads are expensive. The only way for you to get onto a good fixed cost lead program, and also have decent commission levels is to put your money where your mouth is. That means you’ll need to have around $1,500 to put up for your security deposit. Eventually, you want to be on a fixed cost direct mail leads program. You’re going to also be paying for the leads as they come in, while you’re selling. We’re talking around $30 to $35 per lead. Yes, this sounds expensive for someone with nothing and very little experience. Remember what I mentioned about the Starbucks franchise. It’s not like I’m asking you to put up $20,000 or something. I’m not even suggesting for you to put up $10,000.
The Successful Agent vs Failed Final Expense Agent
Having success at insurance sales will depend on you buying leads each week. Agents that don’t spend money on leads, don’t make very much money. Actually, they usually just end up doing something else, eventually. To the point! Here’s what I’m getting at. You’ll need to commit to spending around $4,000 to $5,000 on leads, during the first 4-6 weeks, just to get going. This small investment will guarantee that you have brand new, fresh leads, every single week. Look, successful people do whatever it takes to be successful. We’re not afraid to try different things and we’re definitely not afraid to invest into our business. Successful life insurance agents don’t take the easy way out and they don’t give up very easily. All the successful final expense agents that I have ever me, put it all out on the table, and either make it or break it!
Now let’s talk about that second commitment. It’s important to commit to working for no less than 90 days. Selling final expense works if you give it all your heart for every waking hour. This is the best way you can get through the learning curve. Every time you switch from doing one thing, to another, there is a learning curve involved. With insurance sales, it’s not different. There are a lot of moving parts. It’s going to take a couple months before you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The only way for you to make it, is to hang in there while you’re making mistakes. Learn what works and what doesn’t work. Usually during the first few weeks, you’ll gradually be getting better and better at working your way in front of more people, and closing more and more sales!
Final Expense Insurance Sales Agent Tips
There’s 4 things that you’re going to absolutely need to follow, if you want to make the big bucks. The first is to commit to saving every single cancellation in person, and never, ever on the phone. Your chances of saving a sale goes up by 80% when you do it in person. Trust me, you can’t afford to “try” and save sales over the phone when you are new. Just do what we teach and you will have lots of success selling final expense insurance. Even more important, you’ll actually be locking the insurance sales that you do save, in tight, therefore making more solid sales to people that actually keep the insurance, for life! This is very important so you have a lifetime renewal stream coming in. FYI, most renewals pay around 5 to 6% for several years.
Deliver all your policies! This isn’t a suggestion as this needs to be done with every single sale you make. Your final expense sales success depends on you locking in each and every sale. This will again, lead to more solid sales that stay on the books longer. It’s is also the best time to get referrals from your new clients. When you deliver the policy and go over it with your client, you simply break out the “Agent Evaluation Page”. Jst have the client fill it out. This is the best way of getting multiple referrals from just about everyone that you sell to. That means free leads. Not only free, but some of the best leads you’ll ever get for insurance sales. Your clients will gladly refer you to their friends and family, just because you went the extra mile and did the right thing.
How easy is final expense insurance sales?
Speaking of going the extra mile, pretty much all the top producers in our industry have to drive at least a couple of hours away from their homes. They do this so that they can work the easier areas to sell in. During the learning curve, most agents will travel to different counties and cities, to find their favorite honey holes. There are areas that I’ve worked that actually have a higher closing rate than others. These areas are full of people that are much easier to sell to. So yes, you may need to commit to sleeping a few nights here and there, in hotel rooms. For the right people with the right work ethic, traveling can double your income. Traveling is just part of the business for most successful agents selling final expense, and that’s just another reason why they are top producers, and most people are not!
Once you’ve gotten through the learning curve, you’ll definitely want help. Unfortunately, finding a good appointment setter is not always easy. I suggest finding a family member that you can train to do it correctly. Exactly how you set your appointments! Someone you can trust and depend on! If you can’t find a family member, then try finding someone on Indeed.com. There are lots and lots of people that want to work from home on that site. You’ll be able to try different people as it’s easy to go from one person to the next. That way you can find the right appointment setter for your final expense business. The trick is to train them to do more than set the appointment. When I’m in the field, my appointment setter is still calling to book up my day. This is a big part of my final expense insurance sales success.
Top Final Expense Sales Agents Appointment Setter
If you’re working less than 30 leads per week, don’t even think about getting an appointment setter. This will definitely, absolutely be a waste. The idea of using an appointment setter isn’t so that you can do less work. It’s actually so you can spend more time in the field Selling, and less time at home, on the phone. I suggest increasing your leads to maybe 40 or even 50 leads a week. You’ll be knocking it out of the park while selling final expense. By using this method, you’ll be able to make 10 to 15 insurance sales, every single week. This will guarantee that six figure income that I’ve been talking about. It will also make you part of the top 10% of the highest earners in the entire country. It’s all about work ethic and remember, you won’t have to work super hard like this forever.
Selling final expense with this method is easy. You’ll eventually have a lot of money coming in from your renewals too. Your renewals can be more than most of the American work force will even make from their main source of income. This is that passive Income stream you hear people always talking about! The trick is to sell final expense life insurance for several years at a high pace. During your first years, you’ll be building up a long client list. Renewals will be building up every year, meanwhile, you’re collecting a list of clients that you can go to later. Why would you want to go to them later? The senior market is the easiest market to cross-sell to. Medicare insurance sales pays huge renewals. You can always go back to all your clients and make a Medicare advantage or Medicare supplement presentation.
About the Author!
As a top producer, I wrote over a Million Dollars of Annualized premium during my first 3 years in the Final Expense Sales business, so Yes, the information that I’m about to share with you does work. The number one producer for my main carrier, 4 years in a row, was a good accomplishment. I am currently a top producer, even though I sell final expense on a less than part time basis and currently own a national insurance agency. I personally place most of my time and effort into the agents on our final expense sales team. Today, I mainly teach life insurance agents how to make a strong final expense presentation, how to work their final expense direct mail leads and Facebook leads, field underwriting, and everything else including closing the sale.
