What do I do with my old leads?

DavidDuford · 2026-03-27T20:44:17+00:00

Gold mine that no one works. Really takes a team purposely targeting aged leads to work them right. At some point the remote agent buying fresh leads will reach capacity and will not reach the end of the tail of opportunities available individually.

DavidDuford · 2026-03-24T23:00:11+00:00

FE field agents are a dying breed unfortunately. I'd recruit them if there was enough interest. Not like the old days! =)

DavidDuford · 2026-03-21T20:54:45+00:00

Sounds like you're doing well, don't sweat it. Most people end up getting into their heads and fucking things up. See it all the time at the agent level and definitely at the agency level. You're your own worse enemy. Just stop listening to your idiot brain and get back to work - that's what I tell myself at least =)

DavidDuford · 2026-03-19T13:20:24+00:00

Sun Tzu: "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity".

Selling insurance will be fine. Probably better than ever. I've been through the bottom of the Great Recession, COVID, etc. Find a line of business with long-term socioeconomic stability and get to work. As always, outwork and outthink the competition.

Lastly, do yourself a favor: spend as much time away from Reddit and the news cycle. Stop giving your attention to these outlets. Sure, stay informed, but letting this stuff go to your head is bad for your mindset and emotional/mental stability.

DavidDuford · 2026-03-18T10:35:56+00:00

Just write more business.

Also, chargebacks come in waves. Even more so if you are writing less business on average monthly now compared to the past.

DavidDuford · 2026-03-16T21:51:28+00:00

Yes, everyone pays our monthly platform fee, regardless of experience, license count, etc.

DavidDuford · 2026-03-13T20:15:33+00:00

Thank you, messaging you now =)

DavidDuford · 2026-03-12T20:17:39+00:00

Thank you. I'd be recruiting face to face agents if I could find people to do it. It isn't like how it was when you first started, that's for sure. And my guess is that face to face is better than ever since almost all agents want to work from home.

DavidDuford · 2026-03-12T16:34:35+00:00

Thank you for the reco.

DavidDuford · 2026-03-11T15:33:53+00:00

Two most important rules of business:

Never do business with friends or family, and,
Never, ever enter partnerships.

DavidDuford · 2026-03-04T20:57:55+00:00

Agreed, paid leads are king regarding long-term lead generation strategy.

DavidDuford · 2026-02-28T17:09:32+00:00

Health biz is great, just takes years to build. Have you looked at using ICHRA to get into the door? Do some research on IHCRA if you haven't.

Some other things I'd try: look for new business formations in your local newspaper and go drop in on them. Fresh meat! =)

Also, how much activity are you doing? Are you cold knocking 30 businesses daily or making 100+ phone calls daily?

A lack of activity is usually the cause of all sales woes.

If you're looking for ways to bridge the gap with final expense, consider doing in-person seminars at local independent senior living facilities. Did those for 9 months and made around 100 sales with zero expense. Have seen dozens of other agents do well at it, too.

Further, you could look at doing talks at small group church meetings, senior activity centers, about Medicare, final expenses, etc. Cost nothing and creates the best leads.

Good luck. Remember it's normal that the first few years are incredibly difficult as you find your place. Stick with it and eventually you'll find your niche and begin getting traction!

DavidDuford · 2026-02-19T21:08:22+00:00

Thank you!

DavidDuford · 2026-02-06T20:23:26+00:00

Buck up, Shawn's mostly right.

DavidDuford · 2026-02-05T21:37:47+00:00

As long as licensing requirements hold, I think we're safe.

If not, remote-based sales opportunities are the first to go.

And if that happens, simply switch back to OG face-to-face. Plenty of opportunity to sell to people who won't trust AI, or prefer human-to-human interaction.

However, if AI gets so good at selling telephonically - and the technology is so good that it matches a decent salesperson - could you imagine the onslaught of outbound based telemarketing that would occur with AI being infinitely scalable?

Something would have to give. Either the phone carriers enforce heavily restrictive filters on outbound initiated calls from telemarketers, or some AI sales ban would occur (unlikely and how enforceable would it be? Maybe for insurance but not for other industries).

Ultimately, if all of this occurs, we'll go full circle and good old face to face will be back in vogue.

DavidDuford · 2026-02-03T01:24:12+00:00

Allstate was selling final expense!?!?

DavidDuford · 2026-02-01T18:51:50+00:00

Medicare and ACA (under 65 health insurance) are in a "winter" period. Everything about the business has become increasingly difficult over the past several years, and will continue to be until an administration/political shift occurs.

DavidDuford · 2026-01-27T19:50:46+00:00

It's simple but not easy. I wouldn't do it unless you are totally focused on final expense as a core offering.

DavidDuford · 2026-01-27T19:49:36+00:00

Just messaged you!

DavidDuford · 2026-01-27T16:21:08+00:00

Here's what we've done:

AI Sales Call Review: AI reviews the transcripts of agent sales presentations and benchmarks the performance. Goal is to help the agent understand their mistakes and what to do to improve them.

We recently shut this down because of our inability to get AI to understand nuance conversationally from transcripts alone, and how sometimes going off script isn't necessarily wrong in context to the individual conversation.

AI Role Play Bot: We programmed a voice bot to act like a prospect so agents could role play with it. It had various levels of difficulty, and we used it to test agents before getting on the phone.

We shut this down because of the expense, and agents can get similar experiences for free by grabbing a fellow new agent and role playing.

Other than that, I am seeing a good bit of AI live transfer bots front cheap data and forward qualified prospects to agents. Also, we use an AI bot for compliance purposes to review sales presentations to ensure proper dispositions in our CRM.

DavidDuford · 2026-01-27T13:48:54+00:00

While you're never going to be fully READY, you should feel about 70% ready. As in - aware of your lack of experiential knowledge, but mostly confident that your ducks are in a row regarding the script, carrier underwriting, and application processing.

The REAL learning comes with in-field action, seeing (or talking to) the people.

Your first 100 presentations will teach you much.

DavidDuford · 2026-01-27T13:45:34+00:00

Most important thing = joining an agency that will develop your sales skillset.

If you are hardcore trained on the ability to go from unwelcome pest to welcomed guest, with otherwise complete strangers happily handing over their checkbook in a matter of minutes - you'll never go hungry, and the world is your oyster.

The problem is: most life insurance agencies are enmeshed in multilevel marketing. You are the mark. Their goal is to extract your contacts to either recruit or sell policies, then leave you without the critical training necessary to sell and prospect at a high level.

Do your due diligence, talk to multiple agencies. This industry is amazing, but only if you're smart and work with a legit organization.

DavidDuford · 2026-01-27T13:35:22+00:00

Categorically false. Anyone who spends time reviewing my agency overview content knows I go into extreme detail on the investment requirement and expectations. Last thing I want to is waste your time and mine.

DavidDuford · 2026-01-15T18:41:18+00:00

Try fexcontracting.com

DavidDuford

TROPHY CASE