When you first start out as an insurance agent, you’ll quickly learn the importance of obtaining as many quality leads as possible.  For a person who’s new to the industry, the best way to do that is to leverage someone who has already set up their system and has it efficiently running.  You can do this in two possible ways.

First, you can flat out buy leads from an insurance lead company.  This method has its merits and should be recommended to the brand new insurance agent – the reason being that even with the turnkey package offerings out there today, the insurance agent will still have to do some tailoring to make it unique to themselves and their company.  With lead buying, you’re only buying the contact information of someone who’s demonstrated an interest in purchasing new or supplemental insurance.

The other alternative: you can also utilize a pre-generated insurance lead system to generate your leads for you.  The difference here is that the agent has a lot more control over the appearance of the system and can customize it to look, sound, and feel exactly the way they want it to look, further reinforcing their branding and their unique selling proposition.  However, there are some points to consider when looking for a good insurance lead system.

The first point of contention is to figure out what the best method of delivery should be.  There are some insurance lead systems that will generate Internet-only email leads.  In these cases, you must supply input into the design of the landing page, select key words, set your budget and then monitor performance of your campaign.

Other systems will set up a phone call into your office. These are basically forms that mass dial, state your offer (which you need to compose) and then the service connects you with the live prospect who ex[presses interest.  You pay a cost per live transfer.  Typically, you need to financial commit to a certain number of live transfers with this type of insurance lead system.

You have to analyze what your business can afford to handle and the time and input required of you, while determining how many resources you can dedicate to the lead generation system.

Another aspect that needs addressed when choosing an insurance lead system is the ownership of the system itself.  Who will own the system when you, as an agent, are using it?  Will your company buy the license or will you?  Who will host the system if it’s an Internet-based system and what, if any, royalty or rental fees are required to continue using the system?  It would be terrible to put a lot of effort into generating leads through a proven system, only to find a better one and have to abandon it later down the road.

Last, but definitely not least, is the ability of the insurance lead system to integrate into your current marketing systems.  Do you have an assistant who follows up with your prospects?  If so, how do they access the lead’s information?  Will it require that you give some personal information to your assistant?  How well will the system integrate with your email marketing or your CRM system?  Questions like these are all issues that you need to address before purchasing an insurance lead system.

When you first start out, it may be best not to tackle the complicated issues related to getting started with your own lead generation system.  Instead, you should buy leads until you’re more practiced and established in the marketplace.  But if you’re looking to further advance your established career, you should definitely give some serious thought to  creating you own insurance lead system.

The best thing about pursuing insurance annuity leads is that the prospects are not looking for anything specific other than a conservative place to put their money.  Therefore, the potential universe of annuity buyers is much larger than prospects interested in life insurance.Additionally, there appear to be more lead generation firms focused on insurance annuity leads that life, LTC or other insurance products.

The first and probably most important aspect of working with insurance annuity leads is to learn what the lead generation source was – they may be telephone, Internet or direct mail generated. By knowing the medium by which your prospects gave up their contact information, you can tailor your initial conversation with them to the lead generation source.  It may sound like a moot point, but oftentimes the quality of leads varies, depending on the source.

Telephone leads tend to be of the lower quality, as they were probably generated by a call center using an auto dialer.  The lead most likely never had an interest in an annuity until they received a random phone call from one of the lead generation companies.   The question the prospect may have been asked, “Would you like to be contacted about safe placed to invest other than the bank?”  Those prospects that say “yes” become your insurance annuity lead.  This is not a bad place to start as long as you understand what the prospect replied to.

A better type of annuity lead is Internet-generated insurance annuity leads.  Unfortunately, the quality of these still varies widely, as there are many companies who offer incentives for the lead to give up their information.  These incentivized offers result in leads that have no interest in annuities – they just want their free gift certificate.  Of course, not all Internet leads are generated in this way, but you do have to be careful of how they were generated.

Direct mail leads are, by far, the best quality insurance annuity leads of the three.  The prospect has seen the physical ad, taken the time to call or go online and voluntarily given up their personal information.  These leads tend to know a little more about what they want and aren’t afraid to let you know what it is – making the job of closing the sale much easier.   In many cases, the prospect has replied to a card in a card pack with various offers.  The downside of direct mail insurInsurance Annuity Leadsance annuity leads is the time delay.  By the time you get the reply, 10 days may have elapsed since the prospect expressed interest and has long “cooled off.”

Once you have a good grasp on where your leads are coming from and what action the prospect took to get their information to you, then it’s time to work your magic with them.  The first stage, as you can imagine, is getting to know your prospects.

Getting to know your prospects doesn’t mean you need know all of their kids, grand children and dog’s names.  Instead, you need find out what makes them tick.  Why can’t they sleep at night?  Annuities are relatively mundane things and by finding out what the clients fear, hope, desire and dream about, you can treat them like a good friend instead of a prospect.  This will dramatically increase your close rate and decrease the number of prospects that slam the proverbial door in your face.The way to find the prospect’s hot button or source of motivation is to ask.  The best question to start with “Mr Smith, what motivated you to fill out a card about annuities?”

Lastly, you must have an automatic follow-up system in place for the prospect.  You have to have a way – preferably an outsourced way – to continue to connect with the prospect as they learn more and more about you, and consequently want to buy more and more from you.  Since not all prospects will agree to meet you immediately, you need a drip marketing system.

As you can see, the secret to building wealth through insurance sales truly lies in the ability of the salesperson to find well qualified insurance annuity leads and walk them through a follow-up process that’s designed to relate to the individual prospect and meet his or her long term income needs.

There are dozens of companies all over the country that will gladly take your money and give you what they call quality insurance leads.  Unfortunately, some of these leads aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.  Finding the right insurance leads for agents can be quite difficult and can lead to a severe slowdown for any business that can’t come up with a steady stream of leads.  There are, however, a few tricks that all insurance salespeople – no matter what their position – can stand to use.

First, ask your FMO or IMO (Filed marketing organization or Independent marketing organization) what insurance leads for agents they provide.  Most insurance wholesales know that they need to help you with marketing support and have already done their due diligence on dozens of leads programs and isolated those that work.  If you have been dealing directly with the insurance carrier, you may be able to shift your business through an FMO/IMO without any loss of commission yet pick up insurance leads for agents so ask your carriers.

If you have no connections, the Internet truly is your best friend when it comes to finding insurance leads for agents.  It can be used as a search tool to find out more information about a lead generation company you’re considering, the leads they’re generating and the business record of the company, as well as their pricing information and other important details.

As you’re doing your research, you should set up a folder or spreadsheet and keep a file on every company you contact.  If you’re organized about this process, you’ll find it much easier when it comes time to negotiate a deal with a lead generation company for bulk insurance leads for agents.  Remember that everything in life – and in the insurance industry in particular – is negotiable.  Prices, quantities, quality, guarantee – everything is up for discussion.  Take advantage of this when dealing smaller companies that may offer better service and be more enthusiastic about your business.

Next, you should also be networking with other agents.  This works particularly well with agents outside of your local territory – you’re not in direct competition with them, so they’ll be more than happy to spill the beans about the company they use, their best practices when it comes to lead generation and where to advertise, as well as some other hints that you may not be aware of.  If you’re not already a member of your NAIFA chapter, JOIN!!

Unfortunately, getting advice from other agents should be taken with a grain of salt.  You don’t know how successful the agent really is, so you won’t be able to tell if you’re actually taking advice from someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.  If a big producer gives you advice about insurance leads for agents,  give it more weight than the advice of s struggling agent.

Because of the condition of the industry right now, the agency or company you work for likely won’t provide you with enough leads or contacts to enable you to earn a decent living.  Because of this, you have to learn to generate and follow up with your own leads.

The best place to start with generating your own leads is via direct mail.  It’s relatively cheap, and very few salespeople are using it right now.  You don’t need a website – although it helps – and you’ll be surprised at how well the leads convert to sales.   Have the direct mail piece offer an item of interest, say the booklet “Mistakes to Avoid When Buying Long Term Care Insurance.”   Mailing that offer to a list of 65-year-olds in an upper-middle-income neighborhood will get you respectable results.

And finally, while there are many claims that companies will make to try to get you to buy their insurance leads for agents, by the nature of the industry, they may not be of the best of quality.  That’s when you’ll start to notice your sales manager will be getting a little restless.  If you learn how to generate your own leads, you’ll never find yourself coming up short on targeted leads to talk to.   You’ll also have learned one of the most valuable skills an agent can learn – how to market and produce leads for yourself.

As you know, there are many various types of insurance leads.  Generally, they fall into one of two basic categories – shared and exclusive – and from there, they can be classified by the method of lead generation.  But which method of generation offers the best online insurance leads and how do you go about finding the best place to buy or generate those leads?  The answer may surprise you.

When looking at purchasing online insurance leads, there are a few things you have to look for in order to be successful.  Before we go over them, you have to first understand that not all leads are created equal, and without truly grasping this concept, you’ll wind up spending money without getting anything worthwhile in return, because the leads you bought aren’t interested in buying insurance.

The first tip for finding good online insurance leads is to buy from a reputable leads broker.  There are many online that will sell you poor quality leads and not stand by their product.  Some of these companies border on fraud and it can be very hard to tell the good guys from the bad.  To avoid this, only deal with companies that have a good reputation.  Check with the Better Business Bureau.  Also, type in the company name on Google and see what shows up on the first couple pages.  If any negative exists about an online insurance lead generation company, it will show up.  Of course, call the company and ask how long they have been in business, how many agents they serve and ask how they generate the online insurance leads. This little bit of due diligence will keep you from getting a bad deal.

Once you find a reputable company, be sure you know what you’re buying.  You should know by now that shared leads usually end up in a missed sale, so you need to at least find out whether or not the lead will be exclusive to you or shared.  If it is exclusive, ask how long they’re exclusive to you.  Many companies have a time limit on their exclusivity and will sell the lead again after a certain amount of time.

Next, after you’re sure you know what type of lead you’re dealing with, you have to ask the question of whether or not the lead will be a redirect lead or not.  A redirect lead is one that’s redirected to your website after they fill out a form online with all of their information.  These are great because the lead will only be dealing with you and they’ll get the feeling that they filled out their information for you alone – not for a lead generation company. When you call the prospect, you can say “you filled out my form on the Internet…..”

When you’re talking to the online insurance leads company, you should also ask to see the way that they generate their leads.  Not all companies will comply with this, as it is these tactics that will keep them in business, but some will.  This information is worth its weight in gold because it will give you an insight as to how your prospects come into your funnel.  If they are vague or will not show you them method, then don’t buy.

Lastly, when trying to decide between lead generation companies, be sure to ask about the company’s method of filtering their leads.  There’s always bad information mixed in with good when it comes down to the quality of information inputted by a lead.  Sometimes they’re mistyped and sometimes it’s blatantly false information, but whatever the case may be, you shouldn’t have to pay for leads that aren’t actual leads at all. Get the guarantee from the online insurance lead generation company in writing.

From the first day an insurance agent joins the industry, the importance of generating leads is pounded into their head.  “Leads are the lifeblood of your business,” they are told.  Unfortunately, this is only half of the story.

What you do with a life insurance lead is where the truly successful insurance agents differentiate themselves from the masses of unsuccessful agents.  The truth is that the insurance lead marketing you do after the lead is received is at least as important – if not more so – than acquiring the lead itself.

Think about it.  If you’re prospective insurance customer, are you going to give your business to the agent who leaves a sales pitch on your answering machine or the one who calls up and follows up with you to determine what your needs are and how they can best be met?

So what are the important aspects of good insurance lead marketing?

Step #1: SEND something that establishes your credibility.  99% of agents never do this so rather than having any credibility in the eyes of the prospect, the agent appears as simply a salesman.  Note that sales literature/product literature will not establish your credibility.  To excel at insurance lead marketing, you need an article that you wrote, a book you wrote, a report with your photo and name on the cover (see examples at www.advisorbooklets.com), a newspaper article in which you were interviewed.  You probably don’t have such an item so you need to develop it or buy it.

Don’t expect that the prospect will read the item you send.  That is not important.  If all they do is look at the cover, see your nice photo, name and credentials, they will perceive you as an expert.

Step#2: CALL within 2 days of the prospect receiving your credibility item.  Shocking as it may seem, many agents fail in their insurance lead marketing because they fail to follow up in a timely manner.

Step#3: When you call, ASK QUESTIONS. Many insurance agents cannot sell.  They tell.  The prospect does not want to hear about you and your products.  They want to know that you have interest in them and this is accomplished by asking questions (we have many posts on this subject and how to do it at www.javelinmarketing.com/blog).  Each question goes a little deeper until you uncover the hot button and can close to an appointment.

Another important aspect of your insurance lead marketing system is to figure out what you’ll use as a selling point to differentiate yourself from the mass of agents out there that will be competing for the same business you’re trying to get.   Why should the prospect meet with YOU?
To a prospect, you are no different than the next person who calls them up and tells them they have the best product for their use.  That is, unless you somehow differentiate yourself from your competitors and come up with what’s called a “unique selling point.”  You have to find something about you, about your business or about your products that sets you apart from the rest.

One other aspect of a successful insurance lead marketing system is to automate as much of the system as possible.  Automation could mean either using tools like an auto-responder to constantly market to the prospect via email or hiring an assistant to help set prospect meetings and phone calls or using a CRM system to alarm you when you need to follow up on the free report you sent.

Insurance lead marketing is a science requiring a systematic approach.  There’s a lot more to just buying or generating the lead.

It’s difficult to obtain exclusive life insurance leads from a lead generation company.  Companies who provide or generate leads are usually milking the listings for all they’re worth, selling them over and over again to anyone who’s willing to pay for them.  Some of these leads have been pursued to oblivion.  Therefore, it’s easy to see why an exclusive life insurance lead is the Holy Grail that every single insurance agent searches for, and why it’s probably best kept secret and under wraps just like the real thing.  It’s very likely that such a lead will generate a sale – as long as you know how to best utilize the opportunity.

Maybe its best to generate your own exclusive life insurance leads?  One way to do this is to use the geo-targeting feature on Google where you can post ads just for your local area.  You pay Google each time a prospect clicks on your ad. Since your ad is only displayed to prospect that live in your local area, your ad distribution is limited.  Prospects you capture will be your exclusive life insurance lead.  There are companies that can set up a campaign for you to use the Internet in this manner (watch 10 minute video).

The exclusivity of any such lead provides a sales agent with the opportunity to approach the interested prospect and deliver a sales pitch undeterred.  But is that all you can do with it?  What else can you do with an exclusive life insurance lead, besides making use of it on your own?  Well, to maximize the money you can make out of it, don’t just make a sales pitch and leave it at that.  If you managed to make a sale, then that’s great.  But if you didn’t, consider selling the lead to someone else whose products or services may be a better fit for the prospect.

However, exclusive life insurance leads don’t just grow on trees, as most experienced life insurance agents already know.  Most of the time, you’ll be using the same old leads and contacts as your fellow agents, although, once in awhile, you might just happen to be in the right place at the right time when your client was ready, willing and receptive to your sales message. You might also get lucky with a client who contacts you out of the blue – which is why your marketing and promotional strategy is so important (as is your client referral program).  If you’re able to use these personal connections to get in touch with a client who’s looking for life insurance, you’ll be getting a free ride throughout the sales pitch.

So far we have referrals form clients and running your own ads to generate exclusive life insurance leads.  Another source is to team up with an investment broker.  Most professionals that sell securities don’t have interest in selling insurance so why need team up with one or more of them to sell to their clients?  Give them a part of the commission (consult your state’s rules on commission sharing).  Any such professional referrals are cherry exclusive life insurance leads.

No matter how you got the insurance marketing was generated, the prospect is not dying to buy an annuity.  That’s what selling is all about.  Uncovering the prospect’s WANTS (not needs as people don’t buy what they need) and matching those wants with insurance products and services.  You determine if there is a match by asking questions, not by telling your prospect all the reasons there are to buy insurance.

Most agents can’t sell. They think they can. I would estimate that 70% of all insurance marketing leads are wasted–that the prospect is a viable prospect but the insurance agent has a lack of skill to convert the prospect to a client.  For that reason, many insurance agents have an opinion that “leads don’t work.” More accurately, the agent can’t work the lead.  Sorry if we offend you but we have found this to be an accurate assessment after monitoring thousands of insurance agents. We highly recommend you study these two books:

SPIN Selling by Neal Rackham
Question Based Selling by Tom Freese

Please don’t just read them.  If you study them, you will easily double the number of appointments when you speak to insurance marketing leads on the phone and double your closing ratio in person.

You will learn much form these books.  The most important lesson is that anytime you end a sentence without a question mark, you’re not selling, you’re telling.  The #1 rule of a sales: the one asking the questions controls the sale.  If your pitch is to tell the prospect about your product and then wait to address their questions or concerns, you’re losing 2/3 of your sales.  Don’t be surprised if you have purchased “lousy” insurance marketing leads that did not convert.  While you may view the lead as the problem, that’s not why the prospect did not buy.

Another rules of selling is that you don’t give your pitch and then look for a “yes.”  Insurance products today are too complex.  Explaining your insurance policy simply confuses your prospect in most cases. In fact, you should have the prospect agree to do business with you BEFORE you even talk about your insurance policies.  Let’s consider this hypothetical sales conversion.  Note how the agent asks questions.

You: Thank you for meeting.  May I ask what motivated you to inquire about insurance?

Prospect:  I think I might need some, but I don’t think I can afford it.

You: How much life insurance do you think you need?

Prospect: $200,000 to pay off my mortgage

You: Why does this concern you?

Prospect:  I don’t want to burden my family with debt if I die.  I want the house to be paid off.

You: What do you think the insurance might cost?

Prospect: I don’t know, maybe $1000 a year?

You: What would be the source of the payment?

Prospect: From the money I earn but I use everything I earn for my living expenses so I don’t think I can afford it.

You: If I could show you how you could afford it, is this a major priority for you?

Prospect: Absolutely, what ideas do you have?

You: May I take a look at your last pay stub and any investments or savings that you have?

Prospect: If you can find $1,000 a year without impairing my ability to pay my living expenses, you have a new client

In this sales conversation with an insurance marketing lead, notice that there is no pushing, no convincing. Are your sales conversations all about convincing and educating, about TELLING the prospect.   If that’s the case, then you probably don’t  get as many appointments as you should from you insurance marketing leads and likely don’t close as many sales as you should.

If you ask other insurance agents about their experience with insurance lead programs, you will get responses from “great” to “terrible” even about the same program!  How can that be?  Because 8o% of the value of the lead depends on what the agent does with the lead.  If you think that you can just call the lead and say “I understand you want to buy life insurance,” for get it. You must have a LOT more finesse than that and a great deal more sales skills.   The experienced agent who has honed his sales skills, knows how to ask appropriate, penetrating questions and engage the prospect can turn a name from the phone book into an appointment.  The inexperienced agent who has no sales training can use the best insurance lead programs in the world, but not knowing how to work the leads, will report that the leads are terrible.

Most agent don’t understand the paragraph above.  They think that lead programs should just deliver new clients.  But insurance lead programs can only deliver prospects that have interest.  The exception is appointment setting programs which actually set the appointment for you.  of course, this are infinitely more expensive (insurance lead programs typically offer leads for $20 to $30 while appointment setting systems will charge $60 to $100 per appointment).   But even with set appointments, you will have two issues:

1.prospects not home when you show for the appointment (it’s my philosophy if YOU are not the one to set the appointment, you have no rapport and the prospect has no commitment to you)

2. even with a set appointment, you are a total stranger and if your sales skills are not top notch, you won’t make a sale.

With the above warnings presented, let’s provide a few guidelines to find quality insurance lead programs:

1. The prospect should have expressed interest not more than 10 days ago.  More than that and the lead is stale.  Even with that said, we have agents that ask our company for our old leads, those more than 10 days old and they have success with them.

2. The prospect should have expressed interest in insurance without being coaxed.  For example, if the prospect replies to an ad in a magazine, an ad on the Internet a mailer that they must fill out and return, this is indication that the prospect has genuine interest in the insurance offer as they had to respond.

3. Quality insurance lead programs will make best efforts to deliver prospects that are qualified.  For example, if the prospect sees an ad in a magazine and the ad asks for age, or income or health conditions, the prospect may not tell the truth with personal questions.  Additionally, if the magazine is targeted at people between age 30 and 50, there is no way to control someone 75 years old getting the magazine and replying. The insurance lead generation company has attempted to get you the prospect profile you desire but cannot guarantee it because they cannot control which prospects reply to the offer.

There are things you can do to increase your success with insurance lead programs:

With a business like the insurance sales business, which is so dependent on the amount of sales registered, if you want to build a long-term business, it’s in your best interest to be consistent with your lead flow.  Without consistency, you won’t be able to forecast sales, decide what your staffing will look like or be able to invest in your business.  So when you decide to look for legitimate insurance lead programs, this is one thing that you should keep in mind.

When you get to the point where you’re discussing the lead source’s practices with them, you should always bring up the question of lead exclusivity.  If they’re going to be shared leads, how often do they resell them?  You may be surprised by the answer, because some companies may resell the leads up to ten times, leading to a very stale lead, very quickly.  There are two numbers you should be aware of – the number of agents that will be sold the lead and the average number of agents that end up buying the leads.

Exclusive leads are no different.  Many insurance lead programs usually resell their exclusive leads over time, eventually making them shared leads.  If you’re going to go down this path, you must know what your time line will look like to close the sale.  If it’ll take you two months to reach the lead and the program will start reselling them in one, you’ll be paying for a competitive advantage you can’t lose.

However, even the most experienced insurance  lead generation companies require that you do your own due diligence.  Before signing with anyone, you should go back to your sponsor company and ask around to see if anyone has used the lead generation company before.  Try visiting online forums to see if anyone has been talking about their reputation lately, and if they have, what they thought of them.  You should also check the Better Business Bureau and do a Google search to see what comes up for the insurance lead programs you’re considering.

Finally, you should have a good feeling for the technicalities of the company’s insurance lead programs.  How will you receive your leads?  Will they arrive on a CD in the mail?  If so, will you be required to load them into your CRM system manually?  Do they scrub their leads for accuracy and replace the leads that have bad contact information for free?

With so much riding on the quality of the insurance lead programs you’ll be using, you simply can’t afford to not check into the validity of the details and the customer service reputation of the program you’re considering.

You shouldn’t be surprised to find out that the difference between a struggling insurance business and a thriving one is the amount of constant, steady leads that are sent your way.  Your end goal should be to generate your own leads, however, as a new agent, you shouldn’t attempt to generate your own leads until you have a solid marketing and follow-up system in place.  For example, you should first become firmly planted in the industry, tweak your unique selling proposition, determine your specialty and philosophy and build your brand before seeking out your own leads.  The best way for a person to get started in this industry is to find a company that will offer a life insurance lead for agent and then sign a contract with them.   The contract is important for you so that you know exactly what you are buying and the terms, conditions and guarantee.

Any business that’s dependent on direct sales will be a cyclical business.  Some weeks, you’ll make $5,000 in sales, and some weeks you’ll make $100.  This makes it incredibly difficult to plan out your business and everything else that rotates around a solid source of income to survive.   However, if your efforts are continuous and consistent, and you have a constant flow of life insurance leads for your agency, you’ll do well.

It should come as no surprise that the number one question you should ask when trying to find a life insurance lead for agent is how the company maintains their steady lead flow.  Of course, they’ll likely have a canned answer available about how they spend a lot of money marketing.  Make sure the answer makes sense to you.  If it’s vague or nonspecific about how they generate life insurance leads for agents, then don’t proceed.

Once you’ve heard these pre-formed answers, you should look into the companies yourself to see if all of their claims are valid.  Swing by an Internet forum that looks busy and ask them if anyone has done any work for this company before.  You’ll be surprised not only at how many people are willing to help you out – it’s sort of shocking to see how some agents, who many may consider your direct competition, will go into extreme detail when talking to you.

When you’re trying to find a lead generation company that can supply life insurance lead for agents, you should always know what you’re getting into and whether they’re offering exclusive leads or shared leads.  If they’re shared leads, you have to close on these leads very quickly, as the other agents receiving the lead will swoop in and start marketing to them – that’ll be one hundred percent in keeping with the letter and spirit of the rules that you agreed to follow when you bought those leads.

On the other hand, exclusive leads are very helpful as you’re the only person who receives the prospect’s information and you can have the potential sale’s personal information without making a dime off it.  The issue here becomes a logistical one, in which you’ll be forcing your prospect to make a choice between agents.   When that happens, you’ll probably lose on most occasions as a new insurance agent.

Finding a good, solid life insurance lead generation company should be the backbone of any insurance agent’s business.  Without it, you’ll just be a struggling, flopping, business with no traction whatsoever.

It’s no secret that the success of an insurance agent is directly proportional to the number of leads he can generate or buy.  While there are merits to generating your own leads, rookie insurance agents shouldn’t even think about taking this step until they’re firmly established in the industry.  So how does an insurance agent – particularly a new one – find a legitimate insurance lead program that not only will provide him with a steady stream of leads, but more importantly, leads that convert?  The answer might be simpler than you think.

You probably know how important consistency is if you want to build a long-term business.  When you operate your business, you have to think about things like how much overhead you want to take on, as well as what your sales projections are for the future.   Therefore, it should be no surprise that consistency of lead flow is one of the most important things to discuss when trying to find a legitimate insurance lead program.  And for certain, you must have a budget for this (yes, it takes money to make money).

You should discuss with the lead source how often they resell the leads they’re going to sell to you.  Some lead companies will sell the same lead to five or more different agents at the same time.  This won’t work for you.  You want exclusive leads–make the lead company give you this guarantee in writing.  Additionally, you should ask the lead generation company how long they’re your exclusive leads.  Most companies will turn exclusive leads into shared leads over a period of time, so you should always know what kind of time you have to close the deal.  Also ask the age of the leads–how long ago did these prospects respond?

When looking for a solid insurance lead program, you should do your due diligence on the company you plan on using.  You should visit insurance agent’s online forums and ask if anyone in the forum has used the company that you’re considering, and if so, what they thought of them.  You should also check with the Better Business Bureau to see if they have any outstanding reports or complaints on the company.

Do be cautious when relying on other agents’ opinions on the Internet.  The most successful agents don’t have time to chat on online forums.  It’s usually, less experienced, less successful agents that frequent forums so do all you can to get facts, rather than opinions about your prospective insurance lead program.

Next, you should look into the technical details of the company’s lead generation system.  Do they have an online control panel or “back end” that will be updated real time as your leads are delivered?  Do they offer support, and is it 24-hour support by a real, non-outsourced person?  What sort of systems do they have to verify that the lead information is correct – called scrubbing – and if it isn’t correct, do they replace it for you for free?

All of these questions are very important to finding a quality insurance lead program, and none should go overlooked.  The fate of your business is in your hands and you should treat it that way by taking the time to find decent lead generation program.   If you do the necessary due diligence to find a program and it does not work out, you may find that you need to try 2 or 3 insurance lead programs before you find the holy grail.