Comparison to other lead services

In my best year in the business as a full time producer, I generated commissions of $1 million. Hopefully, this qualifies me to give advice on how to be successful in financial services and how to use your time efficiently with the right leads. I see too many producers waste their most precious resource—their time. They pursue insurance leads, annuity leads, investment leads who should not be pursued and they do so the wrong way.

Low end insurance "leads" and investment "leads"

We found a company that has people complete cards (from a county fair or other public venue) and answer these questions:

Do you currently own annuities? (no)
Would you like to receive information on annuities? (yes)

The people are age 45 to 64 and have minimum net worth of $300,000 (which means almost any homeowner will qualify) and household income of $100,000. The insurance lead company that produces this annuity lead guarantees to the advisor that 100% of the prospects will be reachable by phone. Obviously, it’s IMPOSSIBLE for them to guarantee that because you know that there are people you can never reach by phone. You call all times of day and you only get their voice mail. So be careful about lead guarantees—think for yourself if the lead guarantee can actually be provided.

So their backup guarantee is this—if you order 1,000 insurance leads, they will guarantee you earn at least $10,000 in commission as long as you “pursue” the leads. If that guarantee is not fulfilled, they will replace the insurance leads. Think about this—if you call 1,000 people from the phone book, you’ll also earn at least $10,000 in commission! Even though the cost for their leads is low ($1.18 each), you are basically buying names no better than those in the phone book!!! The prospect does not know who you are, they have not expressed any significant interest and probably filled out the card because they were included in a drawing to win a new car. On top of that, the lead card may be eight weeks old.

Please think through what the lead company is telling you. Ask yourself:

Is the way the lead is created indicate an interested buyer?
Is the way the lead is created indicate a motivated buyer?
Is the way the lead is created indicate a qualified buyer?

Or will you just waste your precious time on the phone calling leads that are nothing other than names? A quality insurance lead or investment lead generation system generates leads that are low volume, high quality. You don't want a lot of leads as that will waste your time. You want leads that become buyers. ASK for evidence of that.

Next, don’t be fooled by anyone’s offer of inexpensive or free “leads” as they are worthless. These are actually not “leads,” they are just names and phone numbers and you can get the same value by simply calling into the better neighborhoods in your area and these will be free from the phone book. Or, call any list broker and for 10 cents a name or less, buy lists of people that are age 60+ and have net worth of $500,000 or more.

All low end insurance lead systems like this are built on one fundamental idea—if you call enough people, you make money. So these high volume lead systems waste your time—hours and hours—while you call unqualified, uninterested people who don’t know who you are. Result—you waste your most precious resource—your time.

High End Leads

At the opposite end of the insurance lead and investment lead quality continuum is a lead company that charges $110 per lead. Yikes!! These leads are generated through forms on the Internet. People encounter a web page that offers a quote for a particular product e.g. annuities, term insurance, long-term care. People may be as far as 75 miles from you so the chance they will come to you is zero, which means you may need to drive three hours (there and back) for potentially nothing.

The insurance lead company guarantees that the lead has $5,000 to invest. I don’t know about you, but after my third month in the business, I raised my minimum to $25,000 because it’s just not a good use of time to deal with less. If you don't have a minimum investment criteria, you’ll end up in three years with 800 small clients that waste your time and you’ll be struggling 11 hours a day to make a living. Their additional guarantee is that the leads are at least 40 years of age. This is not much of a guarantee for $110 per lead.

The good thing about these leads: they are Internet leads. In this firm’s case, their insurance leads are guaranteed to be not more than 48 hours old. However, they note that up to 15% of the leads may be bad and they will replace them. Internet insurance leads are always better than any lead generated by a form, or anything handled by mail or physically handled as it will be weeks old before you receive it.

If the lead does not meet the following criteria, the firm will give you a replacement lead:

Real person
Real phone number
Person is age 40+
Person has at least $5,000 to invest

SeniorLeads™ -the way we do it for $18 per lead

Our insurance leads and investment are also Internet leads and you get them via email within 24 hours and often within five minutes of the person completing the lead form on the Internet (because we know that email is inherently unreliable, we also store your leads and we urge you to check them at least twice weekly on our server). You specify the radius for the leads as small as one zip code or one mile radius. You will not waste time driving to far away leads, and the people live close enough to come to you so a meeting becomes far more likely. You specify the type of lead (annuity leads, life leads, mutual fund leads, long-term care leads, ira rollover leads, etc).

Here’s the special part—before you contact the lead, we will send via email, at your option, a booklet personalized with your name, photo, credentials, contact information and biography. Because prospects receive the booklet before you call, they are already impressed by your knowledge. You look like a professional, not a salesperson. And this is where all other insurance lead and investment lead systems fall down. Other lead systems have you call the prospect with no "introduction" and you come off as a sales person, and not a professional, and you don’t get the appointment. In addition to providing the booklet which creates a super favorable first impression, we provide you an instructional guide, sample audio files and coaching on how to follow up with the leads, along with unlimited access to our weekly consulting calls.

Here's how we think. If we make you successful in converting your insurance leads and investment leads to appointments, you keep hiring us to find you more prospects!

You won’t get a ton of leads to waste your time. You may only get three to five a week, depending on your radius. The leads come to you fast and give you a much higher probability of setting an appointment. Does it work? Listen to what advisors say.

Leads are $18 each, which includes a emailing your personalized booklet, if you so desire.

See leads currently available in your zip code: