Shauna Thoresen warns insurance agents and financial advisors to ask three questions before buying leads from a done-for-you service: Does the vendor own the landing page or do you? Who controls the ad account? Are the ads personalized or generic templates? You need to own your brand and data.
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These 3 questions are going to reveal if they are one of the good guys or if they're one of the bad guys. If you're considering working with an agency or some sort of done-for-you system where they generate leads for you exclusively to you and then set up some sort of a system, here are the 3 questions that you need to ask them before you make any type of commitment. Now, I work primarily with licensed professionals like insurance agents, financial advisors, estate planning attorneys, and so on, and I teach them how to generate their own exclusive leads. And one of the things that has surprised me most, especially about the insurance industry, is how unethical it is by design. And I'm talking about it being unethical for you, the insurance agent. There are so many of these done-for-you systems and marketers that are set up to trap you into a never-ending cycle where you are dependent on them. You never own your own marketing, so you don't ever own your own growth. So here's the 3 questions that you need to ask. One, will you be running the ads from Will you be running the ads from my page with my branding or from a dummy page that you own? The reason why this is important is because if you're going to be spending money, you need to actually be growing your own brand, not theirs. Will you be running the ads from my ad account or the ad account that you own? This is important because if it's their ad account and you guys dissolve the relationship, they take all of the data and you start over. If it's your ad account and you dissolve the relationship, you take all of the data, and that is the only ethical way that someone should be running ads for you. It's the only way that I ran ads for the 10 years that I've been in this industry. It has shocked me that that is not the norm in the insurance industry. Number 3, are you going to be using the same generic ads for me that you use with all of the other agents that you run ads for? Most of these systems have their like 4 or 5 generic ads that they typically use, and then they use offshore help to help set up those ads and run them. There's no personalization. There's none of your branding. There's none of your messaging. And the reality is, if you're spending your money, it needs to be your message that gets out there. Not to mention, the messaging is what is going to dictate the quality of the lead and what they're actually interested in. You're advertising a gift card or something like that, that's what the lead's going to be interested in. Look, there is nothing wrong with outsourcing any part of your business as long as you still own it and you're still overseeing it. And I have a very firm and strong belief that if you work with any type of contractor, If the relationship dissolves, you should always walk away from that relationship at a better position than you were when you started. If this is the year that you're going to take control of your lead generation, then follow this account for more tips.
