The Annuity Lead

The absolute worst thing you can do when selling annuities is to use a “one size fits all” sales process, marketing annuities in the same way to each of your prospects.  Think about it – just like no single pair of pants really fits everyone in the world, every one of your prospects will respond differently to the many emotions and motivations involved in the annuity buying process.  For example, one buyer may be swayed by the security offered from the guaranteed payments of an income annuity, while another may respond more to tax-deferred benefits of fixed and variable annuities.  It’s up to you as the agent to understand your prospect’s specific goals and needs to have success at annuity selling.

But how do you begin the process of understanding your annuity prospect?  You can’t really ask, flat out, “Tell me about your secret motivations.”  At best, your comfortable will feel uncomfortable and move on to another agent, while at worst, your meaning could be misconstrued, leaving you in an uncomfortable situation!  Fortunately, there are a few conclusions you can draw from the basic information your client provides as part of the initial consultation.  For example:

• How old is your annuity prospect?

The age of your client should be one of the key factors in determining how you market annuities to him or her.  Elderly clients have different concerns than young couples or families. For instance, they may not respond as strongly to the idea of their investment growing over time compared to the benefit of a guaranteed regular payout.  So if you stress the right benefit to the right age group, your annuity selling is more successful.

• Is he or she married, and if so, are there children in the family?

Parents typically have a vested interest in providing for their children’s future, whether through savings for college education or a sizable nest egg that will be their legacy once they’ve passed.  You can use this desire for stability and security to your advantage in the annuity sales process, with projections of future annuity value.  Such projections would have little impact on someone single and age 80.

In addition to this basic information, you need to pick up on the subtle clues that your annuity prospect is dropping throughout your meetings.  One great place to start is with the question, “Tell me about your financial history.”  Of course, all agents use this question to get a feel for the size of their clients’ wallets, but we’re going to extend it further to uncover some of the more hidden motivations.  Instead of just breezing through their responses, ask them to reflect on the financial decisions they’ve made. 

If, for example, your prospect lost $50,000 on a failed small business start-up, ask how they felt afterwards.  If your client exhibits fear at the thought of losing so much money, try to market annuities that feature guaranteed returns over time.  On the other hand, if your prospect expresses frustration over what that money could have been doing over time, he or she may be more susceptible to pitches that revolve around long-term gains or tax-deferred benefits.

Pay special attention to any specific statements – either yours or the prospects – that cause your client to become uncomfortable or emotional.  These statements are the key to discovering the hot-button issues that you can use to tailor your sales presentation and increase your annuity sales success.  Don’t think you can get away with repeating the same tired message over and over again – by learning to understand your annuity prospect and implementing a customized sales message, you’ll dramatically increase your annuity sales and make customers for life.

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You already know that one of the most challenging aspects of selling annuities is finding qualified leads to pitch your products to.  Cheap lists of leads rarely pan out to actual clients, but prospecting individual leads can take so much time that it cuts into your profits.  One relatively unexploited avenue is using mortgage protection leads to sell annuities.

With the current economic recession, people are worried that they may lose their jobs.  They want to make sure that the mortgage is paid and they aren’t left homeless in this situation, so they purchase a mortgage protection plan – another form of insurance – to make sure their bills are paid in case of job loss, disability or death.  In recent years, many annuity agents have found that mortgage protection leads have resulted in some of their best clients to sell annuities.  But what makes these leads stand out among others?

• Someone who purchases mortgage protection wants to make sure their family is taken care of if something happens to them.  These types of people are often very receptive to hearing about other financial products that guarantee specific returns.

• Homeowners usually have the financial ability to invest in annuities or other retirement plans – more so than renters, who may be living paycheck to paycheck.
 
• Purchasing a home and taking out a mortgage protection policy indicates a certain level of financial responsibility.  Therefore, these leads are more likely to be interested in planning for retirement or for dire circumstances.

However, the real trick is that once you get the lead, you have to convert a person who indicated an interest in mortgage protection insurance into an annuity buyer.  During your initial consultation with one of these leads, there are several questions you can ask to encourage this change in thinking, such as:

• Do you feel that you are fully prepared if you become disabled, laid off or unable to work?

Mortgage protection only pays the mortgage, so how will you handle other bills?  The guaranteed returns of an annuity can be a great way to assist with these expenses if you aren’t able to work for any reason.

• Do you currently have a life insurance policy, and, if so, is it earning you the biggest possible benefit?

People who are concerned about their homes are likely also concerned about their families and spouses.  If they have purchased a life insurance policy, they may be able to earn a higher rate of return on the investment producing an annuity sale.

• Do you have additional income or savings that you’d like to grow tax-deferred?

Homeowners and professionals and who have already maxed out their 401K and IRA contributions may be sitting on substantial savings that could benefit from the tax-deferred aspect of an annuity.  If they’re interested in protecting their homes, they should also be interested in protecting their savings.

But where can you find these leads?  There are many companies that offer mortgage protection leads.  If you’re part of a big financial firm, you may be able to get leads from another division of the same company.  If you’re an independent annuity agent, consider forming a partnership with a mortgage protection agent to share business and leads for your mutual benefit.  If you aren’t able to set up a partnership or share leads within your company, try searching online for lists of these leads for additional annuity sales.

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There are potentially millions of people who may want to purchase annuities, from the recently retired to the fortunately wealthy, and with such a lucrative market it is important to remember that nothing is set in stone; there are a number of different proven ways of selling annuities and many that should be considered. Let’s look at some of the more popular, and how they work.

Lead generation

There are numerous telemarketing companies that can help in finding you potential customers by providing a professional lead generating service. They look at the service you are providing, deduce the clients most likely to be interested in your product, and send them a message offering the service that you provide – in this case annuities.

This is a simple and effective method of generating annuity leads, and leads are essentially potential sales waiting to happen. Look on the web for telemarketing organizations, and you will find a cost effective and simple method of marketing your product.

Direct Mail

Direct mail works by targeting potentially interested parties, and not just to addresses at random, by using lists generated by direct mail specialists.

These lists contain only people or organizations that will be interested in particular products or services – in this case, annuities.  Your best demographic is females, age 60+.

Selling annuities in this way is a proven method of generating leads, and with companies out there that focus on direct mail campaigns, you can be sure to find a campaign supplied by a company that will not only mail your offer to the chosen clients, but design and process the entire project.

Direct mail is a long way from the ‘junk mail’ that it once was considered as, and is now a technologically advanced method of selecting the right potential client for the right service. However, if you don’t want to do it that way, you can buy lists of potential clients from companies that generate and supply them, run your own direct mail campaign.

Drip marketing  - the repetitive sending of direct mail Or email) to the same prospects, making sure your mail drop is high quality, and targeting the same addresses over and over again – is an effective way of hammering the message home.

Each time they receive the message – and for the best effects it must be five or more – it will subliminally be taken on board, even if the card is simply thrown away or email deleted. The repetition element is important in cementing the image, and once the mail drop has been done it is important to remember to follow up your campaign; a quick telephone call to each of those on the mail drop list, making sure they received the card and asking if they are interested will elicit a response in some cases that may not have been forthcoming otherwise.  The same can be accomplished dripping with an insurance newsletter.

The above are just some of the methods of selling annuities, and with time and experience you will be sure to develop many more of your own using these guidelines and ideas.

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Annuity companies offer a wide range of products for investors in different age groups and taking into consideration various other parameters. Selling an annuity product to an investor takes a great deal of effort on part of the company and the representative. Companies use various kinds of strategies to sell their annuity products. While some use the concept of hard selling to sell their products, others use marketing strategies to create a pull. Let us see some of the strategies that are adopted by companies to package an annuity product, sell annuities to the investor and how they service the product once it is sold.

It is important to remember that like any other product an annuity also has a sales cycle. It starts with marketing and ends with servicing the product.

As we all know there are various annuity products offered by different companies. The annuity products are categorized under two broad headings of immediate annuities and deferred annuities. Advertising products in the print and media plays a large part is the brand and product visibility. Internet marketing is also catching up in a big way. Nowadays, customers have also become much more educated about the annuity products that they buy. With information available at their fingertips, they have the option to compare a wide range of products offered by different companies. Customers use annuity tables to calculate the return that they can expect from a particular product. As a result the sales representative of the companies are also bracing themselves up to face the new generation of knowledgeable customers. 

Under the two broad categories of immediate annuities and deferred annuities, there are specialized annuity products which are sold by the Insurance companies. A proper segmentation of customer base is done before the customers are targeted. The profiling of customer base is very important before a product is targeted at the customers.  A person with a high disposable income and age on the lower side of the 40’s may be interested in a variable deferred annuity in prepration for retirement. Age, income and financial factors are taken into consideration before a product is pitched. The software applications used by various insurance companies are able to do this detailing to a great extent.

To keep their cost of selling low, insurance companies prefer to do cross selling and up-selling of various products. It is not surprising to hear a reverse mortgage agent pitching an annuity product to an existing customer.  The market for annuities has become much more competitive than what it was a decade back. Companies are offering a new range of annuity products almost everyday to keep up pace with investor’s changing financial requirements.  This trend is going to continue and more sophisticated financial products are in the offing for potential annuity buyers.

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The market for selling annuities is massive and, potentially, extremely lucrative. Consider the millions of people who retire each year, and have surplus funds that they want to invest, or those that become wealthy early and want to make sure their funds are used to grow, not decline in value.

But the methods of selling annuities is not set in stone, there are a number of different proven ways of selling annuities and many that should be considered. Let’s look at some of the more popular, and how they work.

Direct Mail

Direct mail works by targeting potentially interested parties, and not just to addresses at random, by using lists generated by direct mail specialists.

These lists contain only people or organisations that will be interested in particular products or services – in this case, annuities.

Selling annuities in this way is a proven method of generating leads, and with companies out there that focus on direct mail campaigns, you can be sure to find a campaign supplied by a company that will not only mail your offer to the chosen clients, but design and process the entire project.

Direct mail is a long way from the ‘junk mail’ days of old, with modern technology allowing the most sophisticated selection techniques, but if you don’t want to do it that way, you can buy lists of potential clients from companies that generate and supply them, run your own direct mail campaign.

Drip marketing

Increasing the intensity of the direct mail marketing method can also increase the success, and this becomes known as ‘drip marketing’. Drip marketing is a the repetitive sending of direct mail to the same clients; make sure your mail drop is high quality, and target the same addresses over and over again with a series of cards. Each time they receive the message – and it must be done at least three times – it will subliminally be taken on board, and even if the card is simply thrown away, the repetition element is important in cementing the image.  A great tool is a monthly insurance newsletter with annuity articles.

Once the mail drop has been done it is important to remember to follow up your campaign; a quick telephone call to each of those on the mail drop list, making sure they received the card and asking if they are interested will elicit a response in some cases that may not have been forthcoming otherwise.

Lead generation

In the field of generating leads there are a number of organisations on the net that specialise in this area, and a web search will give you a list of the more popular of these, and most likely one that can offer potential annuity clients.

Telemarketing professionals know what they are doing, and they don’t offer a miracle but a proven method of attracting leads, and of reaching the potential client that you need to find.

The method is simple to use, and picking up your potential leads is as simple as retrieving a message on the cell phone. It’s also an efficient method, too, as the leads generated are sure to be interested in what you have to sell.

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Selling annuities can be quite profitable, provided you know whom to sell to and how to sell. Most people view the annuity selling business as a gamble because getting annuity leads that work is actually one. When you buy annuity leads for money, you can get amazing leads that lead to a high percentage of sales. On the other hand, you might end up buying annuity sales leads that have a conversion rate of one per cent or less. By managing to get quality annuity leads, you can end up earning excellent commissions. So how do you go about generating annuity leads that convert into customers? Our step by step guide here will help you get good annuity sales leads easily.

Know Your Target Market: If you are already into the annuity selling business, then you might have a good idea about the demographics of people who are buying annuities. Seniors form a major portion of the people who invest in annuities, but simply buying a list of names and addresses of people over 60 does not qualify as a lead list. Define your prospects in terms of age, monthly household income, geographical location, occupational profile, and ownership of financial products etcetera if you want to generate quality sales leads.

Choose Your Medium Wisely: Once you have identified your prospects, the next step is to find a place or a medium through which you can reach out to them. Do you think all your prospects surf the internet for products and advice? Or are they living in small communities where everybody swears by the local rag? Do all of them live in certain particular areas where you might hold educational seminars for collecting leads? Advertise through the medium that you think your prospects are most likely to use. You can also try a combination of mediums based on your marketing strategy and budget

Create A Powerful Message: The common man is bombarded with hundreds of advertising and marketing messages everyday. If you want your adverts to catch your target audience’s attention, you will have to think of something that is different and customized. Offering something of value to your customers or a lead generator can come in handy for collecting quality leads. When you use a lead generator, you offer your prospects something like a free financial counseling session or a free booklet on managing funds (e.g. How To Buy The Best Possible Annuity, How To Manage Your Funds Post Retirement etcetera) based on the demographics of your target audience.

This would establish you as an expert and people would come to you to buy annuities instead of you running after them to sell. But you will have to make sure that your lead generator offers valuable information instead of being an ad for your product. On the other hand, you can also directly advertise your annuity product as long as the message you choose is powerful and compelling.
Get annuity leads in your local area – prospects seeking assistance now!
This post contributed by Javelin Marketing

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Selling annuities is tricky business. As a result, you see that while some people selling annuities somehow eke out a middle class existence, others who have mastered the tricks of the trade roam around in high end cars and live in plush villas. You might find many high end annuity salespeople turning away sales and annuity leads for some reason or the other and thought that in their position, they can afford to. Right?

Wrong! Because the main reason why some annuity sales people are successful while others are not is because they have learnt the art of turning away prospects. Your success as someone selling annuities largely depends upon your ability to judge prospects and disqualify imperfect annuity leads instantly. Most people who succeed in this business do so because they do not waste their time convincing non- buyers to buy their products but rather spend it productively only on chasing leads that they know will turn into conversions.

As someone with even a little amount of experience in annuity selling, you would also have gained the experience to judge whether a prospect is inclined to buy or not within the first five minutes of interaction. However, most salespeople continue wasting their times with such leads because they are desperate to make a sale. But since no customer is an idiot, most of them can see through your desperation and leave you without a sale and all alone with your desperation once again.

On the other hand, people who have made a success out of selling annuities do not waste time on every annuity sales lead. Instead they will begin by disqualifying leads based on demographics, telephone conversations and initial contact. So if you give both a newbie and a pro 20 leads to begin with, the rookie will waste the whole week selling to every lead and make 2 sales while the expert will disqualify annuity leads based on initial interaction, meet with 8 and make 5 sales in two days. This would leave him with more leads to follow and give him time to work on improving his marketing strategy and promotion.

Another major advantage that you can get by disqualifying annuity leads is that you can establish yourself as a specialist. Everyone wants to deal with a specialist, and if you manage to create a niche for yourself in this market, you will never be short of sales. Just make sure that the niche is not too narrow! For example, you can market yourself as a specialist dealing only with seniors above 50 years of age and sell products targeted only to the senior market. You might have to turn away a few good leads that do not fall under this category, but you will soon find people seeking you out because your clients might recommend you as the specialist to go to for the senior annuity buyer.

Other situations in which you will save a lot of time, effort and energy that can be put to good use prospecting elsewhere are when you get an initial impression that your client cannot afford the products you are selling, that they are not suited for him or her or when your annuity leads do not look interested enough. 99.9% chances say that they will not buy. Don’t waste your time on such leads and you will gain credibility and respect. Once people get the impression that you are not a desperate salesman, they will feel more inclined to buy. This definitely sounds convoluted, but human psychology generally is!

Get annuity leads  in your local area – prospects seeking assistance now!

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Selling annuities is tricky business. As a result, you see that while some people selling annuities somehow eke out a middle class existence, others who have mastered the tricks of the trade roam around in high end cars and live in plush villas. You might find many high end annuity salespeople turning away sales and annuity leads for some reason or the other and thought that in their position, they can afford to. Right?

Wrong! Because the main reason why some annuity sales people are successful while others are not is because they have learnt the art of turning away prospects. Your success as someone selling annuities largely depends upon your ability to judge prospects and disqualify imperfect annuity leads instantly. Most people who succeed in this business do so because they do not waste their time convincing non- buyers to buy their products but rather spend it productively only on chasing leads that they know will turn into conversions.

As someone with even a little amount of experience in annuity selling, you would also have gained the experience to judge whether a prospect is inclined to buy or not within the first five minutes of interaction. However, most salespeople continue wasting their times with such leads because they are desperate to make a sale. But since no customer is an idiot, most of them can see through your desperation and leave you without a sale and all alone with your desperation once again.

On the other hand, people who have made a success out of selling annuities do not waste time on every annuity sales lead. Instead they will begin by disqualifying leads based on demographics, telephone conversations and initial contact. So if you give both a newbie and a pro 20 leads to begin with, the rookie will waste the whole week selling to every lead and make 2 sales while the expert will disqualify annuity leads based on initial interaction, meet with 8 and make 5 sales in two days. This would leave him with more leads to follow and give him time to work on improving his marketing strategy and promotion.

Another major advantage that you can get by disqualifying annuity leads is that you can establish yourself as a specialist. Everyone wants to deal with a specialist, and if you manage to create a niche for yourself in this market, you will never be short of sales. Just make sure that the niche is not too narrow! For example, you can market yourself as a specialist dealing only with seniors above 50 years of age and sell products targeted only to the senior market. You might have to turn away a few good leads that do not fall under this category, but you will soon find people seeking you out because your clients might recommend you as the specialist to go to for the senior annuity buyer.

Other situations in which you will save a lot of time, effort and energy that can be put to good use prospecting elsewhere are when you get an initial impression that your client cannot afford the products you are selling, that they are not suited for him or her or when your annuity leads do not look interested enough. 99.9% chances say that they will not buy. Don’t waste your time on such leads and you will gain credibility and respect. Once people get the impression that you are not a desperate salesman, they will feel more inclined to buy. This definitely sounds convoluted, but human psychology generally is!

Get annuity leads in your local area – prospects seeking assistance now!

This post provided by Javelin Marketing

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Selling annuities is not just a tough job, it is also extremely competitive. However, people who are successful at annuity selling can and do drive around in Mercs and Jags whereas others eke out a dismal living from being an annuity salesperson. If you are a serious annuity seller who wants to prosper in this business, make sure that you never commit these five deadly mistakes.

1. Using Only One Kind Of Marketing Strategy: There are many annuity sellers out there who follow upon their annuity leads with direct marketing; others resort to mailing or telemarketing. Other annuity sellers advertise only through flyers or newspaper ads. But by relying on a single marketing strategy, you expose your business to an extremely high risk of failure. Be a savvy seller and combine different types of marketing approaches like mailing, postcards, newspaper ads and flyers, telemarketing and direct sales with referrals, endorsements and symbiotic marketing and Joint ventures. This would ensure that even if a couple of your marketing plans fail, your business will not.

2. Investing Money In Buying Loads Of Useless Leads: Always remember that one good lead is worth more than a hundred bad ones. In spite of this, most people selling annuity programs invest money in buying single dollar leads that have an extremely low chance of converting into sales. Others might spend hundreds of dollars on buying costly, but prime leads that might convert into high end annuity sales. The best way here is to try and follow a marketing path where you first identify your target market and then spend money to innovatively capture leads that turn into sales. By spending a little time and effort, you can save thousands of dollars in lead generation.

3. Blaming The Economy For Your Failures: Over the past one year, a lot of people selling annuities as a part time job have left it because with rising inflation and a bleak economy, they feel that nobody is in the mood to invest in annuities. However, this is nothing but a lame excuse. If you are unable to convert your annuity leads into sales, then maybe there is something wrong with your own approach, your sales pitch or your method of dealing with clients. Everyone wants an assured income once they stop earning, and whether the present market is up or down hardly makes a difference to someone who is planning for tomorrow.

4. Not Having A Marketing Plan At All: Faced with this, I am sure that you would respond with, “Are you crazy? Of course I have a marketing plan.” But when asked to elaborate upon a marketing plan and strategy on the lines of a professional company or firm, most people who sell annuities draw a blank. Realize that just buying annuity sales leads and cold calling or sending out mailers and postcards is not a marketing plan. Instead, you need to garner all your resources to formulate and implement a marketing plan that clearly outlines expenditure, aims and revenue. Having a multi pronged marketing plan is not only necessary for keeping you on the track to high earnings but also for keeping you afloat in a highly competitive business.

Get annuity sales leads in your local area - prospects seeking assistance now!

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