Common Questions @ Our Annuity Leads
1. How are your annuity leads different from other programs I have tried in the past?
• First and foremost, we understand what you want in an annuity lead . Because Scott is a CFP® that began in the industry in 1998, he knows the products, the industry and how to create and scrub a high quality annuity lead.
• Because over 2,050 insurance agencies and advisory firms has purchased annuity leads from Scott since he began in March 2010. Our process has been improved every year and is proven to work.
• Scott’s annuity leads come from a multiple media platforms. Radio, TV, online and direct mail. Working with Scott instantly gives your firm expose to prospects you likely could not reach on your own.
• The annuity leads are exclusive, fairly priced ($200/lead), and there are no long term contracts. You can also set daily & monthly caps to protect yourself as a lead buyer.
• Because Scott has 2 full time employees who do nothing but scrub leads. Scott’s team spends 25-30 minutes scrubbing each annuity lead that we sell.
• Scott’s team is NOT an FMO and will never hassle you to switch your contracts. They focus on 1 thing only – High quality annuity leads.
• Scott’s annuity leads are responding specificially to annuities. This lowers the response but increases the conversion rate on the leads.
• Because his annuity campaigns are more compliant and do NOT use rates of return or income riders to deceive consumers to become a lead. The public is already skeptical about annuities. Consumers who think they are getting 7-17% are not good leads and are a huge compliance risk.
2. How are the annuity leads created?
Our annuity leads come from national radio, TV, online and direct mail campaigns. We realize that advisors & agents are selective and focus on the media options which produces the highest quality leads for our clients. For example, we often ignore game shows on TV because the leads are often lower income individuals.
Our business revolves around you what you want – high quality, scrubbed annuity leads.
3. Who do you try to reach for your annuity leads?
We try to reach baby boomers and seniors who are upper income and have assets. This is important because 50-60% of Americans have virtually nothing saved for retirement and have little to put aside into any retirement product.
4. What is the average age for your annuity leads?
Radio & TV our average age is 64.
Online our average age is 61.
Direct Mail our average age is 56
5. Can I protect myself from receiving too many annuity leads?
You should never purchase leads from a company unless they allow you to cap to your account. We allow our clients to set both a daily and monthly cap. When the monthly cap is reached our software automatically shuts off client accounts and resumes the lead flow the first day of the next month.
6. How many annuity leads should I expect to receive?
Your lead flow will depend on the # of zip codes you cover, population within those zips, and how receptive your area is to the offers. Our clients receive 3-30 leads per month. Clients who receive more than 20 leads per month typically cover over 5-10 million in population. If you are in a rural area we strongly recommend you cover at least a 90+ mile radius around your office.
7. How do you determine which agent/advisor receives your annuity leads?
Our annuity leads are routed based on the zip code. Most clients sign up with a zip code and radius. We have a 60 mile minimum. If you want to maximize the lead flow we recommend you cover 90-110 miles from your location. If you don’t want leads from a bordering state due to licensing reasons just let us know on the enrollment form when you sign up.
Note – we use a zip code to zip code distance not a driving distance when setting up a clients territory. We can send you a file showing all of the zip codes and counties in your area before you sign up.
8. Do you have protected territories?
Yes and no. We usually restrict territories to 2-3 clients in most major metro markets. Contact us and we can tell you if your area is open and can give you an estimate of what your lead flow might be.
9. Can I change my zip codes/territory after signing up?
Yes . You may shrink or expand your area at any time. If your territory borders another state make sure to let us know if you are not licensed there.
10. How long does it take to begin receiving annuity leads?
This varies based on the population in your territory. Generally speaking clients usually receive their first lead 4-7 days.
11. Do I have to pre-pay or commit to a certain number of annuity leads before I join?
No. If a company ever asks you to pre-pay we suggest you run the other direction. Lead companies do this because they have no confidence in either their ability to create leads or the quality of their leads. This is why they want their money up front.
Our agreement is simple (No long term contract and no pre-payments of leads). Either party can discontinue the relationship at any time for any reason.
We bill our clients weekly in arrears. You receive the leads first and then pay later. Most of our competitors either charge you up front or hit your card per lead. We trust out clients to do the right thing and most people do.
12. What are you offering in the annuity ads to create the annuity leads? Can we see the commercial?
We don’t release the commercial but can give you a summary on what it says. We offer a report which summarizes the best annuities on the market. Contact us if you need more specifics as to what is being offered in our ads.
All of our clients have access to Annuity Rate Watch which they can use when working our leads. We recommend Cannex Financial for SPIA and DIA’s.
12. Is Annuity Rate Watch or Cannex FINRA approved for the annuity leads?
Our clients are using materials from Annuity Rate Watch and Cannex to send to the leads. Annuity Rate Watch is already approved inside of many broker dealers, banks and FMO’s.
Cannex quotes are guaranteed to be accurate from the carriers themselves and is approved inside of several wirehouses.
13. Do you send out the “annuity report” to the annuity leads or do your clients?
Our clients (the advisor/agent) send all product information to the leads. We give our clients the flexibility to decide what to send to the leads based on their situation. We don’t send out product information because this could interfere with the sales process.
Our call center tells the callers that an annuity specialist will contact them in 1 business day. They are told this specialist will be their single point of contact and be the one who sends them the information on annuities they requested.
14. What is the average case size for your annuity leads?
This varies based on the client and region. Our best guess is that the average case size is $250,000. 40-45% of our annuity leads have already purchased an annuity.
15. Why are radio and TV generated annuity leads qualified?
Radio & TV Commercials produce high quality annuity leads. These leads call in and speak to our call center where they are asked 11 qualifying questions and told a specialist will contact them. After the call is finished one of our internal employees audits the call independently to ensure our process has been followed.
Radio and TV are trusted media platforms which have a lot of credibility in the minds of baby boomers and seniors. TV is probably the most credible advertising medium there is. Most advertisers on TV are not start ups but relatively well established entities. This trust helps advisors work the leads.
16. What information is provided with the annuity leads?
• Full Name
• Address
• Telephone Number
• Caller ID Number (if different)
The leads are also asked a series of questions which are usually answered such as
• Year of Birth
• E-mail Address
• Are they looking for income now or later?
• Do they own an annuity already or are they a first time buyer?
• What is their time frame on making a decision
• What is the best time for an annuity specialist to reach them
The leads are also asked if they work as a licensed financial advisor or insurance agent.
17. How do you scrub the radio, tv and direct mail annuity leads?
Our leads call in and speak to our call center where they are asked 11 qualifying questions and told an annuity specialist will contact them. The only optional question is their email address.
Next, one of our 3 assistants will re-listen to the call and spend 25-30 minutes scrubbing it. When auditing the call we make sure the call center asked all relevant questions, take notes to improve on the lead data and visit 15 websites to scrub out any financial advisors, agents or fee-only planners who call.
35-50% of our annuity calls become leads. The other 50-65% are scrubbed out because they work in the business, are over age 85, do not want to answer our questions or they object to an annuity specialist calling them.
18. Why are your online generated annuity leads qualified?
The internet has the potential to create great annuity leads if the campaigns are set up properly.
Most educated & tech savvy boomers/seniors will look online before buying a financial product.Therefore, online can be a great place to market because you are reaching them closer to making a decision (end of the buying cycle).
We market to boomers and seniors who are directly searching for information on annuities or are on high quality websites and see advertisements on annuities.
After clicking on the ad, leads are taken to a website where they need to complete a 10 question online form to become a lead. Before the lead is processed one of our assistants will spend 20-30 minutes scrubbing the lead.
19. How do you scrub the online annuity leads?
We spend between 20-30 minutes scrubbing each online lead. First, we are going to call the phone number and make sure its not disconnected. Next, we put the phone number thru a database that we subscribe to.
Our goal is to identify the bad leads immediately so they don’t waste your time. After all someone has to do this work. Since we are providing a service for the industry we feel we should throughly scrub the leads to help our clients save time.
When scrubbing the leads we are looking for bad data. Is the information on the lead form correct? For example, does the name assigned to the phone number match the name on the lead form? If not, we phone verify the lead.
We also scrub the online leads to make sure they are not advisors or insurance agents. We perform advisor searches on both the husband and wife because a male agent can supply his wife’s information on the lead form.
20. How do you scrub the annuity leads to make sure they are not insurance agents or advisors?
Here are 8 of the 17 steps in our process
We google the leads name and zip code
We google the leads email address
We google the leads phone number
We visit the department of insurance for that state and do a search
We visit FINRA and do a agent locator
We visit the SEC IARD site to try to locate fee-only planners.
We goto linked in and do a member search around the leads zip code.
Finally, we repeat the entire process for the SPOUSE of the lead if the lead came from the web. We do this because agents and advisors online often hide behind their spouse’s name. They don’t hide from us 🙂 Call center leads can not fake their gender. If a man calls in and leaves his wife’s info….he is probably lying so we look up his name and scrub it.
We do this process for all of our annuity leads regardless of source. Our call center asks callers if they work as a financial advisor or insurance agent. We have found that advisors/agents lie 50% of the time when asked this question….so we scrub.
Why do all of this work? Because our clients love it. If we sell leads that lie about working in the industry our clients might spend weeks following up with the lead. This is prevented by us doing a great job on the front end.
21. Why do people fail in your annuity lead program?
The #1 commonality of people who fail in our program is a low appointment ratio (under 20%)
Clients who do well typically book 30-70% appointments on our leads. Make sure to watch our video titled “How Top Producers Work High Quality Annuity Leads” to get more information. If you need help converting appointments into clients we recommend reading the book “The Secret of Selling Anything” by Harry Browne.
22. Do you release the call recording for the radio/tv/direct mail annuity leads?
We keep the call recordings for 60 days and can use them in the event of a refund request.
We do not have call recordings for our online leads since they are completing a 10 question online form.
23. What is the average conversion rate on the annuity leads? How should I expect to sell?
Conversion varies by client and is broken down into a few categories
Superstars close 1/3 to 1/4 leads.
Average producers close 1/10 to 1/12 leads
Below average producers close 1/15 to 1/20.
GA Case Study – One of our clients in GA received 32 leads from us in 2014. He was new to working leads and paid some tuition as he only covered 1 of them. The case was $350,000.
Even he made 5X his investment.
Because clients use a variety of methods following up with the leads its hard to give an exact figure as to the ratios. Sales ability, region, size of city, and old fashioned hard work affect the results.
24. What areas are the easiest/toughest to work annuity leads?
Generally speaking, smaller towns and rural environments are easier to work than larger metro markets.
The midwest is the easiest area to work leads because the leads tend to be the easier to speak to and less skeptical. Rural areas in the midwest are the easiest.
San francisco, New York, northern new jersey and the boca raton area have been the toughest historically. If you are familiar with the area/culture then you have a better chance of succeeding. Ex. New Yorkers can best sell New Yorkers.
We have had clients succeed and fail in all areas but this is a general guideline. The right person will do well anywhere and the wrong person will fail everywhere. We strongly suggest you watch our 2 videos on working our annuity leads before joining.
25. What type of agents/advisors do well in your annuity lead program?
Advisors who have a history of working leads tend to do better because they are better at booking appointments and converting appointments into closed business.
26. Who is most likely to struggle in your annuity lead program?
Advisors who don’t try to meet the leads in person tend to struggle the most. This is a relationship business and relationships are best built in person.
27. How do we sign up to receive your annuity leads?
Click on this link 2020 Agreement to download our enrollment form. You can return it to us by fax or e-mail. After receiving the form we will email you a username and password to login to your online account, marketing materials you can use, and a video titled “Common Questions New Clients Have.”
28. How many annuity leads do you consider a good test of your program?
We usually consider 10-20 leads to be a good test. If you can not afford to work 10 or more leads save your money and goto Vegas. It will be more fun.
29. Can you send me an invoice for my annuity leads to my FMO, wholesaler etc?
Yes. Our software tracks all of our client billing history. You are able to access this 24/7 inside your online account. We can send you a billing summary any time you request it.
30. How many refund requests do your annuity leads receive?
Our call center leads (radio, tv and direct mail) refund request is 1.6%. This means we get around 1 refund request every 50-60 annuity leads we sell. Half of our refund requests are not legitimate. Our online leads refund request rate is 2-2.5%. Our refund request rate is low because of the time we spend scrubbing our leads. Our clients are able to request a refund inside of our software. From there one of our assistants will call the lead and verify/deny the request based on our follow up.
31. Are you affiliated with an FMO or IMO?
We partner with several FMO/IMO’s in the industry and do not care where you write the business. We are not an FMO and focus solely on creating high quality leads. If you are a marketer at an FMO we will send you our “coverage map” which breaks down which areas are open. Marketers have direct access to Scott. Many marketers work with Scott to use the lead program to help grow their agent database.
32. How do I receive the annuity lead information?
Our software will e-mail you the annuity leads when they come in. Some clients like to notify their assistant, marketer or backup email address.
We can also send your cell phone a text message with the name and phone number of the lead.
The text message serves as a backup reminder for you to check your email OR access your account online. We highly recommend this option in case the lead email goes to your spam folder.
33. Do you create annuity leads in my market? How do you reach my area?
Radio Annuity Leads – We advertise on several radio shows nationwide. The shows are made of hundreds and sometimes thousands of radio stations. When you advertise on the national level each of the radio stations plays the commercial.
TV Annuity Leads – We advertise on national health, travel, news, financial shows. These are either regional or national and have calls coming in all over the USA.
Online Annuity Leads – Our online campaigns are customized for your territory specifically.
Direct mail Annuity Leads – Our direct mail campaigns are either national e-mail campaigns or national package insert programs.
34. How much do the annuity leads cost? How does billing work?
Leads are $200/lead. There are no long term contracts. We do billing every Wednesday in arrears. Our software will charge your credit card on file every Wednesday morning for the outstanding amount.
Ex. Lead received Thursday would be billed the following Wednesday morning.
Ex. Lead received Tuesday would be billed the next day (Wed morning)
35. Do you have references for your annuity leads? People who you can speak to?
If you are skeptical first look at the over 40 audio testimonials on our website.
Listen to them. We have more “real” testimonials than any annuity lead provider in the industry.
Next would watch our videos titled “How top producers work high quality annuity leads” and “The 7 Biggest Mistakes Financial Advisors & Insurance Agents Make Working Annuity Leads.
If you still need help then we can have you speak with marketers at FMO’s which send us business. They can attest to our ethics, honesty and track record in the industry. You might or might not have success in our program.
36. Can we choose radio annuity leads, tv annuity leads or online annuity leads only?
No. Our message and process is very similar across the sources. We do reveal which source the lead came from in the lead details. We do not let our clients choose only one source.
Any other questions about our annuity leads? Call us and we will be happy to answer and question you may have.
