Archive for August, 2009

 

Relationships and our Insurance Agents

Thursday, August 27th, 2009
Smith & Chen


Relationships and Our Insurance Agents

Whether they’re romantic, loving, personal, friendly, or professional, relationships of every kind are everywhere. Men and women have relationships. Parents and children have relationships. Employers and employees have relationships. Teachers and students have relationships. Neighbors even have relationships with one another. Is it any surprise that we should have relationships with our insurance agents, as well?

The decision to purchase an insurance policy is an important one. Even more important is the amount of insurance and the kind of coverage you purchase. This is true for all forms of insurance, from health and life insurance to auto and homeowner’s insurance. Whether you’re purchasing several different insurance policies, or have decided to purchase only one kind of insurance, the process can be a bit confusing if you are not sure about what kind of coverage to purchase. This is why we need relationships with our insurance agents.

Insurance agents are trained professionals. Some insurance agents specialize in selling a certain kind of insurance, while others specialize in selling several different kinds of insurance. The insurance agent with whom you speak will know all of the ins and outs of the particular type of insurance policy you wish to purchase. He or she will be able to walk you through the process based on your financial situation and your needs. Our insurance agents can only know this information if we develop relationships with them.

Whether you find your insurance agent online or in your local phone book, don’t just pick up the phone and buy a policy. Make sure you develop a relationship with him or her before you start signing any dotted lines. Talk with your insurance agent about the coverage you want and how much you can afford. Regardless of the kind of insurance policy you wish to purchase, your insurance agent will be able to help you determine the best coverage for you at a price you can manage.

Obtaining Easy Annuity Leads

Leads are the insurance agent’s life blood. When there is no one to talk to about our products fear and panic invades our world.

There are tons of ways to find annuity leads as long as you rethink your marketing plan.

Target Marketing.

I am sure you have heard it many times and it sort of slides over your prospecting efforts so here is a way to find our target market. First identify who you are trying to talk to as a prospect. If you haven’t thought about it or if you haven’t defined it you can use mine as an example.

My target market are senior adults age 70 and above. They will typically have about $600,000 in assets which includes their home. Normal situations will have about $200,000 in invested assets including their IRA. By using this very wide target market you access a very large amount of potential prospects.

Now we will do something totally outside the box to make my point. Go to your local hearing aid company (the best ones will advertise in the newspaper) and ask them for their list of senior prospects. Offer them $100 per 1,000 names.

The hearing aid company will be happy to sell you this list because you are not a competitor and they can generate another source of funds.

Send a pre-approach letter to the people on the list offering expanded services and always mention the hearing aid company. The letter would mention the benefits of the hearing aid company and how it was expanding its services to a wider product line. This letter should also mention a specific idea like recent changes in the IRA category. Offer a free book and have your name and the hearing aid company’s name on it.

I know what you are thinking….Am I nuts? No, I am not crazy, I am using an untapped market to illustrate the benefits of my products by piggy backing on the hearing aid marketing efforts. It really works and it is a fresh and inexpensive way of finding prospects.

Want another one? Try this idea, it works also.

Funeral homes and final expenses are great target markets. Go your local funeral home (I like them bigger ones) and make a partnership with them with their prepaid funeral expense customers. Offer them a nice percentage of each sale (I like 20%.) They love this because it is a totally new source of revenue for them.

Any decent sized funeral home can provide you with 2-3 years of prospects plus they will love the additional revenue which comes at not marketing expense to them. They can’t wait to become your partner and will love the service to their customers.

Send a very nice pre-approach letter to their customer base offering a new and expanded service from the funeral home. Have the letter mention probate and new information about recent changes in the law. Use a nice booklet about “Avoiding Probate” and go see these folks. It is a win-win situation.

Provide them with an expected cash flow projection so they can see what benefit can be earned for them.

My point is this, there are more ways to find annuity leads than you have time to try them all. Some of our other “professional annuity salespeople” may laugh and scoff at these methods but you will get the last laugh on the way to the bank.

Use a little creativity and think outside the box. These ideas are extremely cost efficient and provide well spent marketing money.



 

Do You Know How To Make Money With Articles And Article Directories?

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Ginni


Article directories are websites that house free articles. These articles are usually put there by whoever owns the copyright to them as a promotion method. Each article has the owners byline placed under it so that those who eventually read the article will know who wrote it, or at least who owns it, and will be able to get in contact with or visit their website for further information.

Articles directories are a great place to put your articles so that they will make you money. By using this method, people who are interested in your product or service will see your article, view you as an expert in the subject, and will visit your website. for visit detial:-www.article-promotion-course.com.

Even if you cannot write or do not have any knowledge on the subject on which you are promoting, an example for you run an affiliate website, you can always hire a writer to do the work for you. Getting quality articles written will be expensive up front, but they will pay for themselves in no time, either through affiliate sales or selling your own services, and everything from then on is pure profit. Let’s take a real life example. Imagine that you are an accountant working from home. for visit detial:-www.ezines-marketing-magic.com. You write an article on an accounting topic and place it on various article directories.

Those who are looking for the subject you wrote about will read your article, see that you have the knowledge and skill that is needed to do a job for them, and visit your website or contact you via e-mail. Your article just gained you a new client who may use your services regularly, but will definitely give you a nice profit at least once. Furthermore, since you have posted it on a free article directory, others who have affiliate websites about accounting will inevitably use your article for their website. Since they must attach your byline to it, this will bring you even more exposure for every website that re-posts your article. This because you will be benefiting of off the traffic that they get to their website.

There are numerous article directories out there for you to utilize. Your bet best is to put a copy of each of your articles on every one for maximum exposure. It will eventually help to bring more traffic and customers to your website, which will lead to new orders and more profit.



 

National Make a Will Month

Friday, August 7th, 2009
Hubbubmedia1


campaign. Jamie Aherne, director of TracingDirect, feels that the public should be given the facts straight. He said: The truth is that if you die without making a Will this can cause anxiety and bitterness within the family. Worse still, if you die alone it is extremely possible that your estate will end up going to the Crown. Making a Will is the only way to avoid this. … Finding Beneficiaries Tracing Direct Jamie Aherne Heir Hunters National Make Will Month Lost Heirs Probate Researchers …

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Estate Planning: Wills – Bloomberg: Your Money

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
Bloomberg


So, how important is it to have a will? It’s very important, assuming you want to maintain control of your assets and avoid the court system. But, before you grab a sheet of paper, you need to understand what should be done to make sure your will is effective and valid.

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What to Do When You Want to Bury Someone But Can Only Afford to Have Them Cremated

Saturday, August 1st, 2009
Mike Testa


As the economy has slowed, more families have been forced, for financial reasons, to choose cremation instead of body burial when someone they care about dies.

A typical traditional funeral followed by body burial in a cemetery costs between $7,000 and $10,000. A typical funeral service that results in the body being cremated runs approximately $3000. While the trend towards cremation will likely continue in the near future, there are things you can do to make body burial more affordable.

One of the simplest things a family can do is choose a service level known as an “immediate burial”. With an immediate burial the body is taken directly from the place of death (or morgue) to the cemetery. Normally, the body stops at the funeral home just long enough to secure the death certificate and burial permit (and for the family to buy a cemetery plot if they don’t already own one). No funeral ceremony is held at the funeral home.

The family can still choose to hold a memorial service elsewhere (e.g. at their church – often for free). This would reduce funeral expenses enough to allow the family to bury the deceased in a cemetery for about what it would cost to hold a typical cremation service at a funeral home.

Forgoing services at the funeral home will usually allow you to reduce or eliminate these costs:

• Funeral ceremony

• Viewing or visitation ceremony

• A nicer, more elaborate casket • Embalming

• Other body preparation (e.g. makeup and hairdressing)

By choosing an immediate burial followed by a memorial service at your church you can realistically reduce the funeral home’s bill from about $7,500 to about $3,000.

There are actually quite a few things you can do to reduce the costs associated with both body burial and cremation. It pays to learn a little bit about the prices and options available in your area.



 

Estate Planning

Saturday, August 1st, 2009
JJChilders


www.secretmillionaire.com http Attorney and asset protection expert JJ Childers discusses Estate Planning. For more info visit wealthattorneyblog dot com.

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