So you’re an insurance agent and you’re getting frustrated with your lead source or in light of recent circumstances are working from home and need to step up your lead generation efforts. You’ve done direct mail where you’re getting less than a 1% return and other leads are either too expensive, shared with other agents or have just dried up.
And you know, other agents are having success using the telephone to generate leads and sales, but you don’t want to make your own calls. No problem we’ve got you covered and can share with you how to find, hire, train and compensate an ISA (inside sales agent) or telemarketer…
Who to Use
- Use existing agency staff.
- Use temporary staffing companies.
- Use high school college students or retirees due to their flexible hours.
Potential Venues to Post Your Ad
- Craigs List.
- Monster and Careerbuilder.
- Local newspaper for your area or a local college.
- Local job boards at schools, church, community centers, etc.
- Look at other effective ads combined with your needs and write your ad.
Prescreening – The Phone Interview
- Evaluate their English.
- Ask about their computer skills.
- Relevant prior job experience.
- Check prior job history to make sure they don’t “bounce” around.
- Describe the job requirements: base compensation, bonus compensation, grace period, minimum production requirements, definition of a lead, hours, dress code, office equipment used, etc.
Prescreening – The In-person Interview
- Show them the dialer.
- Review the scripts with them.
- Ask what motivates them so you can use this later i.e. pay, flexible hours, gift cards, work from home, etc.
- Role play i.e. let them be your prospect so they understand the “entire” process.
- Describe the job requirements and discuss compensation.
Compensation Options – Avoid “Dialing for Dollars”
- Grace period so can learn the process and the dialer.
- Require a certain number of leads or appointments per hour.
- Straight pay hourly rate with no production requirements (NOT recommended).
- Hourly rate plus incentives:
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- Add one dollar per hour for every lead above required minimum for that hour.
- Add flat bonus if get appointment on top of hourly rate.
- Add flat bonus if get application on top of hourly rate.
- Add flat bonus if enroll successfully on top of hourly rate.
Training
- Set up training with SalesDialers.com.
- Shadow you or associate to learn your business i.e. Insurance 101.
- Shadow someone who is making calls currently or agent on duty.
- Take them through the ENTIRE process from the call to policy delivery so they can answer questions during call that might otherwise be hurdles delaying “closing.”
- Give each telemarketer their own workbook binder to include the following:
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- Calling tips.
- Calling scripts
- Sample Objection responses.
- Tracking Form.
Consider Using a CRMDialer to Improve Efficiency
- 96 percent of sales reps’ time when making outbound calls is spent hand dialing, leaving voice mails, navigating phone trees and talking with gatekeepers.
- With a auto dialer you WON’T have to look up a phone number, dial a number, wait for the phone to ring, get a busy signal or disconnected number and then hang up, get an answering machine and leave a voice mail or hang up, try to STAY MOTIVATED and do it all over again.
- Auto dialers let you dial 100 – 400 numbers per hour versus 25-35 hand dialing. Look for features such as: email, CRM lead management, FTC safeguards, custom pre-recorded on hold and answering machine messages and the ability to customize the dialer to your specific business.
- Dialers are more personal, more flexible, more responsive and LESS expensive than other means of lead generation.
- Sales is a numbers game and it’s simple math…more calls = more leads = more sales!
Now you could also look outside of the U.S. to hire a telemarketer where you can find people for a lot less in your labor cost, but you need to make sure their English is up to par. You might go through a few telemarketers before you find that “diamond in the rough” that is a lead-generating machine and when you find them…hold onto them.
If you want to discuss these topics, your lead generation options or want to bounce around some ideas feel free to give us a call we want to do anything we can to help you during these unprecedented times. Stay safe everyone…
