Top 5 Rules for Buying Leads in Insurance (to make you RICH!)

I think the way I look at lead investment is a lot different than most people. Wait, you got stacks of cash back there? I was gonna— I need like a few more hundreds if you have them. I like doing it with hundreds instead of 20s, but I can do it with 20s. If you're a lead guy and they give you $100, right? But you also have to be the insurance company too, so that's the insurance company money. I give you $100 for leads, right? I make a sale. I get $500, right? So if you give me back, you pay me back, I got $500. How much did I make?

$500?

I gave you $100, I made back $500.

Oh, $400.

Okay, I netted $400. Okay, then I do it again. I give you $100 because I want more leads, right? And you pay me, I make another $500 back. I'm sorry, I threw it at you, right? So now I did it again.

So now—

800 out of 2.

Netted.

Sure. See, I look at it different.

Yeah.

To me, I use the same $100.

OK.

This is the same $100. So I really only spent $100 total, where in your head you spent $200. Does that make sense? So when you spend $1,000 this week and $1,000 next week, in your head you spent $2,000. I only spent $1,000 twice. I spent the same $1,000 twice because I got it back. I just— if I drew on this dollar bill and I just did this all day long, it's the same $100 bill. Does that make sense? So when people are like, I spent $100,000 on leads a year, I'm like, nah, I just spent $1,000 100 times. I just keep taking the same money and giving it back. Does it make sense?

Yes.

And it's the mental approach for me. I was like, yo, I'll do this all fucking day. And here's the way I do it. Let's say I take $100 to Vegas, okay? And I go over here and I play blackjack and I win back $500. And then I go over here and I give him $100 on fucking poker, and I get back $500. And then I go over here on roulette, and I put $100, and I get $500. I only went to Vegas with what? Y'all would never say I spent $300 in Vegas. You like, you went with $100 and you came back with $1,500. Fucking win. Does that make sense? But when it comes to— you're like, no, you spent $100 there, $100 there, $100 there, right?

I, I think it's only— you got to think that you spent that if you didn't make any sale from $1,000 of leads with Spark.

I mean, that's the only way that's going to happen is you don't fucking work. Yeah, let's be real. Fair. I don't know anybody that's ever disputed that. You spend $1,000 on leads and don't make money. There's— you never convinced me you worked them. I just— I don't buy it. Has it ever happened to you? Me too. But I could look back on it and go, did you really work them? That's correct. Ah, probably not. You know what I'm saying? And again, is it a trick in my own mind? Yes and no. Because I actually truly believe— no, again, if I just change the scenario to fucking Vegas, you're all bought in. I only spent $100. Because if I went, hey, how much did you tell your— I don't know if you're married or not, but How much would you tell your wife you went to Vegas with if you gambled all day long? $100 at this table, $100 at that table, $100 a hand. You'd be like, "Babe, I only took $100." But with leads, why can't we go, "It's $1,000 all year. I just keep fucking doing it." You know what I'm saying? And that approach, man, it got me to a point where in the normal insurance person's lingo in 20— I think what year it was, 2017. I spent $400 grand on leads. I didn't sell insurance that year. Spent $400 grand on leads that year. Huh? I remember hearing that earlier.

You spent like $80K one year to make it like—

what was it?

On my own? Yeah. Yeah, I spent $80K, but in my head I didn't. But that was everybody else's lingo. I just put $1,500 a week in and I'd make fucking $8,000, $10,000 a week and just put the $1,500 back in. And I'm like, it's the same fucking money.

It softens the blow. That's making it sound like that.

It softens the blow.

And it's— it's— you just have to remember when you get paid, just allocate the lead money and go, whoops, that one, that's not my money. Y'all all agreed I only made $400. So everyone's not confused there. But you get an insurance commission, you're like, "I made $1,000." No, you didn't. Does that make sense? You didn't make $1,000. Correct. You got the lead money in there. You know what I'm saying? It's just a way of looking at it the right way at the right time. And so for me, it was all timing. So I wasn't too afraid to invest that aggressively because I knew it was all coming back. When I look at what I made that year, I'd have fucking— I wish I spent $800 grand that year on leads because I'd have made fucking $3 or $4 million bucks, you know what I mean? But putting $400, I made, I made like $1.8. And again, it was— it wasn't all out at once. It was like, let me buy these few agents' leads. They went make money, I made overrides. I found a few other agents, invested in them, made overrides, took the money again, put it over. It was just taking the same money and putting it back out. It's business. You know, pick a business. They all work that way. You know, you go to McDonald's, you fucking buy stuff. They go buy food, they get the food, they sell it, they get the cash back in, they allocate more money, the same money back to the food. Put 30% towards food every time, you know. And so it's understanding when you make a sale, some percentage of that, call it 25%, it's just the lead money coming back to you, and you just got to reallocate it back in, you know. So you got to catch it on both sides. The spend side, but the deposit side too. We got to look at it and go, I only made $750 because $250 needs to go back to leads, or $500 needs to go— whatever the number is in your head. But it made it really simple for me to understand the investment side, you know. And I'm like, I would do that all day long. And let's say I invest today $100,000, right? And I put it wherever, what would be a good return? 20%. 20%? What do you think would be a good— I said good.

A good return? Yeah, like 25, 30.

That's fucking phenomenal return. That's not good. Fair? Tell me where you can turn 100 into 125 putting it somewhere right now. Where do you know that you can do that?

You get 5%, maybe 5%.

That's my point. Does that make sense? Like, 5% is good. What would you get if you put it in the bank?

If you put it in the bank, if it's a CD, maybe 3.5%, 3.5%.

Okay, so $3,500 is a CD. Okay, what if it's just in your savings account?

Oh, you get 0.9%.

So $900, right? Yeah. On the savings, where can you, where can you get 25? I mean, what's a 6? Yeah, it'd be 6.

They're gonna take the cost of the insurance and then you get 6% of the remainder.

Yeah.

And if you put $100,000, that means you want to pay your annual dues, so they take $10,000, then you 6% of mine.

Correct. Which is still 5%. Yeah. Investment Bitcoin. Yes.

And you can lose it all.

100% can go the wrong way fast.

Annuities, you get 6%, but 5 to 6%.

Okay. Yes. So call it 5K annuity. Yeah. But you can't touch it. But you can't touch it.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

If you touch it, you pay.

You can't, you can't touch it here. You can't touch it here. Right? Doesn't work. It doesn't happen anywhere. So $100 grand, you'd be fired up out of your mind to make $20, right?

A year.

A year. A year.

We forget that part too.

I'm going, Matt, what could you make if you dropped $5 grand on leads? Today? Let's start with— you've sold the least, right? What do you think you could make if I give you $5,000 worth of leads? Let's say you could get, let's say, let's say $30 a lead. $5,000 divided by $30. Let's say you get 160 leads. Pick your kind, I don't care. What do you think you could make? If you had that? Just rough idea. I know you don't know the business at all.

I will say you get 100 leads.

100, it'd be 160 at $30 a pop. 166.

I should get at least about 16. So—

So selling 10%. Yeah. That's where you got that. Yep. Follow.

I should make 10% and then depends on my commission.

Okay. So 16 sales. Correct.

$16 sales.

Okay, and say, let's say you only make $500 a sale. No, $1,000. No, no, no, we're going to go conservative, bro.

Low end, $5,000. So you're looking at 30, so you're looking like $8,000. So actually like some $3,000 ahead. Yeah, yeah, that's more than, that's more than 50%.

That's almost 60. That's 60. Most people wouldn't do that in insurance. They were like, I can only make $8,000 to spend $5,000.

And it's going to be difficult, John. It's going to be difficult for you to make $8,000.

Now, there. Now let's do it your way. No, I want to— because I did this on purpose. Okay, now you get 166 leads prints.

Yeah.

How many apps you're going to write?

I would say Conservatively about 30%.

So what's that? 16, 32, 48 apps?

Yeah.

How much premium you gonna write?

1,000 apiece.

So $48K. $48K. $48K from 5. So what if you're somewhere in the middle? Yeah. He has confidence, he has success, he has a track record, he knows where it can be. You have not— that ROI, 100%, you know. Now where's it hard? When people spend $500 and they make $800, same ROI, right? But you can't do much with $300. But people quit over this. I'm like, yo, you just made 60 fucking percent on your money. And actually, if you were a real nerd and you realize that's 60% in 5 days. The math on that is like— I found— I don't know how to do that math. I remember learning in high school, you hit a little button on that fancy calculator and it annualizes the interest. I don't know how to do that. Yeah. And that's the point is you have to remember that in this business because people judge based on how they feel financially. Or people go, "I didn't make a return on investment." I'm like, define that. Well, after I paid my mortgage and my credit card bills and my car payment, my kids' tuition and vacation, there's no money left. I'm like, that's not how profit works, you know? So it's like, somewhat to his point, you have to like, you have to understand reality and go again. Imagine if you put $500 over here. What are you going to have at the end of the year here? $502. You know what I mean? $500 in this, you have $520. Over a year. You mean if you made 20%, now you got $600 at the end of the year. And you're fired up out of your mind because you made 20% in a year. But if you spent $500, only made $600 this week on leads, you might go into depression. I'm like, why do we do that to ourselves? Not saying there's not more ROI, but you didn't net 20% in 3 days. If you spent $500 to make one sale, you should be like, oh dang, there's something to this. Now the question is, why don't you do that every day? Or why don't you do that every morning and afternoon? You know what I mean? $500 makes it— and again, you'd have to be terrible to not turn $500 into $600. Or not work them, or not, you know what I mean? Go ahead. I know someone said the lead is the lead. Is that true? Yes. I don't get aged leads right now, so if I did go and buy some aged leads, it don't matter. So if, if I gave you the magic lead for $122 Right. Or I gave you one for 7 years old for $0.08. Does the $122 lead love their family any differently than the $0.08 lead? So that's why leads, leads, leads. Does that make sense? Now, if I said I gave you 100 leads that are $100 a pop and filled them out 4 minutes ago, or 100 leads that are 5 years old, which one are you going to convert more of quantity-wise? Obviously you're going to convert more new ones because they just fucking did it. Does that make sense? And this— people have a gap, so they've been worked, or maybe they already bought something, or— but at the same time, also look at it and go, maybe times are different, they're ready now. Maybe no one got to them. Maybe, maybe they canceled a policy 3 years ago and they're ready for a new one. Maybe they had a child. Maybe they got married. Maybe some— and their parents died and they realized something changed in life, you know what I mean? Like, everybody, again, that what-if— people are looking at the wrong angle. I look at an age lead as, you know, most agents don't want to work them, and they're people who want to take care of their family. There's no competition over here. All the competition's here— new leads, high cost. That's where all the competition's at. Not saying you shouldn't do them, but there's gobs of money in working age leads if you just have the right mentality and approach them the right way. If you, if you buy 100 leads for 75 cents, you spend $75 Like, I mean, you could close 1 out of 1,000 and do really well, you know what I mean? You just got to be willing to go through that more, that many more nos. Not because they don't work or don't care for their family, but maybe your approach was wrong. 7 years ago they didn't fill it out, you mean? Like, it's just, there's a, it's a different technique, if you will, to, to that. We used to, we had a guy that was in our group for a while and all he would buy is 50-cent leads. It's all he wanted. He would write $300 grand a year on them. But his approach was really simple. He's like, hey, just calling you back. I'm manager over here. A while back, a few years ago, you filled something out. My records don't show that anyone got this out to you. Can you confirm that? It was like really stupid approach, but it worked really well. And he's looking for like, yes, they contacted me, no, they didn't. It wasn't like trying to pitch away. It was like just follow up. You know what I mean? Hey, just my records show nobody got a hold of you yet. Can you confirm? Really simple. Did anybody get to you yet? Don't show we did. You know what I mean? And it's the angle and the intentionality of it that worked really well for him. It was very non-aggressive. It was very simple. Like the door knocking thing, it kind of brought me back. What do you do when you knock on someone's door? How do you approach it?

Hey, so my name is Lindsay Cohen.

You had filled out a lead a while back and I just show them their information.

So I just wanted to see, have you— is that something that you've been able to take care of? Are you still shopping around for it?

Yeah.

Whatever. Or you had requested info and so I was just delivering that info and they called me back because they— How's the delivery note thing?

How's it go right there? Is that where you get most of the fall-off? Yeah. Most of the pushback? Mm-hmm. Can I give you some advice?

Yeah.

You know what? I like to play stupid a lot. Right. Like I do it all the time. I was having like an email fight with someone yesterday a little bit. We like conflicted and I had to end it. So I chose to play dumb to get her to explain what I wanted her to explain because she was trying to prove a point and I was trying to prove a point. And I'm like, all right, let me play like a fucking idiot. And I did, and she— and it all went away. But when I would door knock, I like— again, I don't want the confrontation. I don't want someone feeling like the sales part right away. I don't— I wouldn't want that on me if car were there, but I wouldn't fill out a lead either. So I don't take too much account into that. But I could see the body language when I did that. Like, it's— people come with hesitation first of all. Like, who, who are you? That's real. That's there. I don't think most ain't coming like armed and ready to do any, but there is like, ah shit, who's here? You get a little of that. And if you— I felt if I went into sales too quick I immediately would get shut down. So, I would do everything the same as you did except I pretended that we couldn't get a hold of them and I needed— I was the guy they sent out to verify the phone number. I just— I literally, I'd be like, "Hey Lindsay. Hey John. Hey, my office sent me out to double-check the right phone number. They said they haven't been able to get a hold of you. Is your phone number right on this?" And I'd hand it to them. 99% of the time they'd be like, Yeah. Like, oh, you probably like me and don't answer phone numbers you don't know, huh? They'd all go, yeah, I get too many phone calls. I'd be like, cool. And now I would convert into the new guy. Same guy that was just the dipshit that checked phone numbers. I'd be like, all right, well, I'm the guy that they send out to make sure I get you all the information on this. And then I would go into sales. Does that make sense?

It's just— yeah.

I mean, I would go— you know what I mean? From there, I would go, hey, I'm just the one that they send to get the information out. It takes like 10 minutes to I'm just here to see if you're eligible for anything. Do you have time now? Do you have time Tuesday? I depend on my schedule. That was it. I was just basically trying to book an appointment. I didn't get into like, do you have it? Do you not? I don't like that. You know what I mean? Did you get it taken care of? You're asking for objections because it's easy to go, yep, I got it. Does that make sense? I'm going like, yo, I'm just a guy that's here to see if you're eligible. It takes like 5 or 10 minutes. Do you have time now? And that was it. So my in was check the phone number. And then right after they all said it's right, 99% of them. Every once in a while there was one that I didn't have the phone number, they're missing a digit or something stupid. But for the most part, I knew I had the right phone number. Many times they told me no on the phone already. This is a complete act. And they'd go, nah. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I'm just the guy that's here to get you the information. You know what I mean? Super, super easy and smooth and that kind of like dumbing it down Dude, everybody's guard dropped instantly because I could get that out quick. I'm just got here, checked phone in my office, said they haven't been able to get a hold of you. It wasn't me. I didn't say I've been calling you and can't reach you. I never did that. I like diverted even though it was me. And dude, I sold a shit ton of insurance door knocking when I had to. Now, my goal was to never have to do it again in my life. That was the goal to get out of that and get to a point where I was buying enough leads to reinvest them. But if you're seeing like whatever your pitch is, whether in-home or phone or door knocking, if you're feeling resistance at a certain point all the time, it's like, "Alright. How do I overcome that resistance point?" You know what I mean? You start making small tweak. And if you don't know how to do it, seek counsel for someone who sells a lot. And be like, "Yo, at this point..." Because everyone has experienced. I knock on a door and they're like, "Eh!" Everyone's dealt with that. Everyone's dealt with how Hi, my name is John, I'm calling you back, click. Everyone's dealt with that. Does it make sense? So we've learned like, oh shit, I lose them here, let me tweak. You know what I'm saying? And there's nothing y'all are gonna experience that someone else ain't already experienced. The problem most do is they ask the wrong people. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, make sure you get out of your comfort, which obviously you are here, but you know what I'm saying? It's like get out of your comfort zone and ask someone who's experiencing it. But what y'all gotta do is learn to not only like, be the salesperson, but you also have to watch it. Does it make sense? So you have to be really aware of what's happening in the moment too, to go like, oh shit, versus go, lead sucks, they didn't have it, they already got it. Like, they're— it's maybe it's the approach that caused that reaction. No different than any of y'all. Someone comes knocking on your door and they're like, hey, I'm just with the alarm company, I hope they're your neighbor. I'd be like, yeah, I already got one, I'm good. And I don't. Or maybe I do. You know what I mean? Like, it is what I just want them out. Or I go to the clothing store and they, "Hey, can I help you?" What do we all say? Every one of us. You know what I mean? It's cart. That's all you deal with. You know how easy that would be to overcome? I wouldn't even mess with it. I'd be like, "Hey, good to meet you, man. Obviously you look for a car. Can I point you in the direction? What are you looking for?" You know what I mean? I'd come up with some angle where the approach would be different. You know what I mean? To reduce that resistance. And that's where a lot of people struggle is the resistance and they keep trying to fucking hammer through the same with the same thing over and over again. If you just get through that little resistance, obviously people ain't showing up to a car lot if they don't want a car. There's no fucking way. We don't go to the clothing store if we don't want clothes. You know what I'm saying? And they don't fill out leads or they don't— And even if it's not a lead, understanding the family dynamic. People want to take care of their family. So, it's like, can you get past that resistance? That's where most fail. Because they just want to plow through it versus finesse and intentionality to get around it. You know?