Have you ever heard that most people spend more time planning a vacation than their retirement?I have a new one. Most annuity agents are not business owners and they spend more time planning a vacation than developing a marketing plan and setting goals.Our partners hopefully don’t reflect that statement and I know for sure most of you don’t. Here is an email I got from one of our partners today. What you see in this email is how dreams become reality.
Hi Anthony,
Just thought I’d give you a little update on the state of our business.July was a good month (although not as good as we had hoped). We ended up with $725k in annuity production in July.We’re currently at $2,374,926.91 YTD. Last year our total production was only $1,431,468.06. Our goal for 2011 has always been $5 million (we’re a little behind).One thing that’s hurting us is cancels. We’ve taken over $200k in cancels for July and over $800k in cancels for the year.
Our goal is to start Safe Money Radio sometime in the fall. Our cash reserves (approximately $16k) are getting better, but still not to where we feel comfortable making the move.We’re currently on auto-pay for annuity leads from Annuity.com; we also commit to 20 Pre-Qualified Annuity Leads per month.Of course we also have miscellaneous expenses and are in the process of adding health insurance.We’d like to maintain our current marketing while adding Safe Money Radio. Our goal is to have 3 to 4 months of expenses in cash reserve.Once are on the air, I really see 2012 as being a blow-out year for us.
By the way, you sell big you lose big. In July We had over $800K in cancels. $400K from Bret Roby and $400K from Chad Owen. When Bret got back from his mission trip in Africa he immediately went out and wrote a $200K case and when Chad got back from his vacation in Florida he wrote a $200K case the next day during a policy delivery. The $56K in chargebacks have already been covered by other issuing business. When you get hit with cancels focus on the future, not the past. It’s not what you lose but what you gain that matters.
As you can see from the email above this partner is at least on track to double last year’s annuity production and may very well hit his goal because a good growth plan is exponential. Not bad for an agent that got their insurance license just a few years ago!
There is more to being in this business than just buying an annuity lead; you have to have a plan. If your marketing vehicle is in park, now is a good time to put it into drive.
Written by anthony-owen
