He Made $6,321 in 2 Days... With Prebooked Appointments

What's going on, guys? It's Tim here from Advanced Agent Marketing. I have a very special guest. This is another case study, Dan Levengood. This one's a little bit different than Johnny. Dan runs his business a little bit differently. Normally, you know, what Julian and I always push is like, do telesales. Do telesales. Facebook leads on telesales. But Dan actually does face to face, but it's still like freaking killing it. So I wanted to bring him on, just have him kind of talk about his experience. We could probably learn quite a bit from his sales process. His closing percentage is. Is abnormally high. I don't know if he's like twisting people's arms or bringing a gun to the door and holding it to their head, but he's getting people to say yes at a higher clip than most anybody that I've ever seen. So I wanted to bring him on here, ask him, you know, a few questions about how everything's been going with us, his numbers, we're going to break down the profits and, you know, everything of how you know his numbers since he's been starting the program with us. And then I want to, you know, ask him a little bit about his sales process, his door knocking approach. This guy's a stud door knocker. So I think there's a lot that we can learn here. But first of all, you know, Dan, introduce yourself, tell the audience a little bit about you and you know, how you got into the business. Yep.

Thank you. So I'm Dan Levengood. I'm out of Akron, Ohio. Like Tim said, I focus on face to face. I've been selling final expense since 2019. Really kind of got started in.

Spring of 2020. Got my license end of 19. Kind of decided where I wanted to work, who I wanted to work with. Spring of 2020.

Have kind of done it full time, part time since then. Right now I'm doing it full time and.

Really kind of do it because I enjoy helping people. Was part of Corporate America for 25 years, supply chain management. If anybody's watching the news these days, supply chain is nothing but a major headache. So helping people and being able to make a living at the same time is a great opportunity. So since I started in the business, I've used both direct mail and Facebook leads. Have always found, you know, high intent with both, with both types of leads. Quite honestly, I. I know historically some folks say if you're face to face, you got to go this direction or that direction. And honestly, I've had success with Both. So, you know, when the opportunity arose to kind of partner with you guys and. And start creating my own leads at a much lower cost, um, it was super attractive and. And we've been doing great ever since then.

Yeah, dude, A couple. Couple things unpacked there. You said you started in spring of 2020. Couldn't think of a worse time to start this business, but you're still killing it, right?

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So when I started, I was taking my own bench, like my own little stool into people's houses. And if you remember the. At the very beginning of that, I mean, people didn't know what the hell to make out of it. Right. So I was wearing a mask into the houses. In some cases, I was wearing gloves. I was taking my own stool to sit in. And so, yeah, it was a super crazy time. And it's been. It's been really interesting to see how different folks reacted to that, you know, situation.

100%. We started in, like, 2021, but there was. There was not a crazier time than spring of 2020. That's. Yeah, I didn't even know that. That's wild. But also, there was something else you mentioned there about running Facebook leads. Did you. Did you mention that the premium was higher? Because I remember when we first had a conversation, you had showed me a case study basically, that you did 100 policies, and you had basically broken down, and most people don't track their numbers like this. So props to you for that. You said direct mail leads, Facebook leads, average premium, and the Facebook. The Facebook leads were about 20% higher than the direct mail leads was like 81 versus 60. I still remember the numbers because they blew my mind that you had all that data, and we've used that so many times since. But, you know, walk me through that a little bit, because I think, like, like you said, a lot of people get hung up on the, oh, I need to run direct mail if I'm doing face to face, or I need to do Facebook leads if I'm doing telesales. And it's like, it's not. It's not a one size fits all.

No, it's definitely not. And honestly, I think, you know, our approach, you know, to. To how you manage your leads. And I was taught as soon as I got into the business to try to do my best to resolve every lead. And sometimes I'm able to, sometimes I'm not. But that's my goal every time I get a batch of leads and, you know.

Your numbers are correct. I did go Back from the time I started, because at the beginning I was doing both. I had a like a 5050 mix of Facebook and direct mail. And then I kind of got away from Facebook and went direct mail for a while. Then I kind of came back. And so, yeah, the average premiums are definitely higher, you know, for the Facebook leads. And not sure if there's a rhyme or a reason to it, but it's true. And so when you combine that with the fact that we can start generating them on our own for much less, it's just an absolute no brainer.

Yeah, 100%. And you. I think we started talking in mid to late September, I believe it was.

Yep.

And so I know we, we initially did the setup, we did it with photo ads. And you saw a pretty good roi, I believe. I know you had texted me that it was like a thousand dollars in lead spend or something like that.

It was four to. Four to one at that time.

Four to one at that time. Okay. And then you, you kind of took a pause for what was it, a month or two or a month and a half. Okay. And then we came back, we got you in the mastermind. We did a round of video ads. And this is where things got crazy. This is where things got really crazy. So when the video ads first started and we did three different iterations of the video, what we found is the shorter video, you know, just knocked the other two out of the park. But the first few days of it, we kind of saw like, you know, Facebook was still optimizing, was like one or two, 20 bucks a day, 12 bucks a day. It was pretty inconsistent. And then all of a sudden, I think it was this week, something changed. And kind of, kind of walk me through what it looked like on your end, because you were kind of, you were starting to get back in. You were like, hey, I need leads coming in now. Facebook's giving me a hard time with the spin limits. And then all of a sudden, whatever day it was, kind of walk me through what that day looked like for me.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So since the day you and I started working together, I was seeing on average one, two, maybe three leads a day. Okay. So, you know, if you multiply it out, it's between 15 and 20, 21 leads a week. Okay. You know, it's acceptable when you start. I knew there was going to be a ramp up phase and I never really kind of paused. I just, I wasn't adding to my spend. I was still working through some aged leads that I had. You know, that I had not resolved yet when you and I started working together. So I was still kind of working through those, working through the 15 to 20 leads per week that I was getting. And then you and I, you know, did the videos, which I think it was about three weeks ago. And kind of like you mentioned, those first maybe four or five days, Facebook was still optimizing and the lead flow was still a little bit higher than just the text ads. Maybe three or four leads a day. From like two or three up to three or four. And then right before Thanksgiving, so about a week ago.

Someone flipped a switch and it went from three or four leads a day to seven or eight leads a day. And not only seven or eight leads a day, but a lot of these people are self booking their own appointments into my calendar. Like those videos really were kind of drawing them in and really kind of striking a nerve and hitting the emotional side of that decision making process, which is what we. What, what helps us. Right? It helps us help them.

100 and yeah, I gotta say too, because like with the local leads typically, because if we're running like a, for example, Your campaign is 25 miles around Akron, Ohio and nobody, nobody tried to go steal Akron, Ohio from Dan. Dan owns Akron Air Akron, Ohio. But you can pick any other city, but not Akron. We won't even set it up for you.

Right. But basically like the lead, the cost per lead to what you were spending the entire time was, was relatively, you know, reasonable. We were seeing like for 25 bucks a day would be like two leads. So 1250 lead, what you pay for a vendor is like 30 bucks. But when we turned the corner, the spin didn't even go up that much. It was, I know when we were getting, it was like 50 bucks a day for. We were getting like maybe four leads. And then all of a sudden one day it just started going down to seven, eight bucks a week. And I think that's when the videos really optimized and it was exciting for me to see because I know we were trying to ramp that lead spend up. Facebook's been giving us a hard time with the spend limits and everything recently. But once we were able to get that sorted out.

We really just kind of turned a corner there. So walk me through. I know the leads started going up. You got a bunch of auto booked appointments. This week is when you ran the auto books, right? I'm assuming you weren't running Thanksgiving or over the weekend.

No, well there, you know, I had a couple on Friday and you know, there were, I Don't want to make it sound like nobody was self booking up until that point. You know, I was getting about 10% were booking their own appointments the first several weeks. And then since like I said about within the last week it's really, I mean it's probably tripled that now probably 25, 30% are booking their own appointments. So you know, it's always exciting for me maybe as the newbie went, when people book their own appointments, because for the three years I've been in the business getting appointments booked has been a challenge. But honestly, I hate the phone. I started off on it, I was okay at it, but I hated it. So I outsourced it. And it's always been a challenge to get appointments. So I've kind of by necessity gotten pretty good at door knocking because I was forced to do a lot of it. So it's really exciting for me when this, when these leads book their own appointments in my calendar. Really, I really, I like that, number one, it, you know, it means less door knocking. But number two, the intent is just significantly higher there. So yeah, I had, I had two, two appointments, I want to say on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. One of them was a self booked appointment, made the sale and then yesterday I had, I had three self booked appointments, sold six policies and then today had four self booked, three were home and I wrote two policies. So just within the last two and a half, three days of working it's been over 6,300 in AP just from.

Self booked appointments you said in the last two or three days of working.

The last two and a half days. Yep.

Is $6,300 in premium.

Yep.

How much would that be in weed spend this past week?

It would be since. Yeah, since, since Thanksgiving day.

So he said Thanksgiving to today.

Yep. What? 350.

350. Yep. So $63 from 350 bucks.

Yeah. And honestly the, the numbers that you just said are actually fairly accurate because normally there would be like a leads and a lags time frame in there. But since these folks have been self booking and I only open up my calendar normally three or four working days out that spend that you just said of 350 bucks. Because I'm capped at 50 bucks still right now. And the 6300 of AP, that's really based off that $350 spend because those folks filled out the ad and booked their own appointment and I went to see them within three days. So that return on investment is really accurate.

That's insane.

Yep.

And I know you were telling me something about how high intent not only the leads were, but the appointments. You had said something when we were on a call earlier about whenever you walked in, something happened. What was that something?

It feels more like I'm walking them through the process than making a sale. Right. And maybe, honestly, I think that's probably part of my secret to success, is that I don't really ever sell. I educate people. I show them the situation that they're in and how it could be better.

And.

I know there's folks that get really good at rebuttals and answering all these excuses. And to me, my goal is always to kind of nip the excuses in the butt during the presentation by educating them. And I know what the excuses are that I would normally hear at the end of the presentation. And so I just incorporate portions of the presentation to kind of deal with those reasons that folks were giving me at the end. So it really felt like with these folks that booked their own appointments, like they know what I'm walking in for. It isn't, hey, I didn't realize what I was filling out. Everybody realizes what they filled out. And it's really more of, hey, this is the person that I want to help out when that time comes. And this is about what I'm comfortable with each month. And I just walk them through the process. You know, I go through the underwriting, you know, because there's still. There's still some work to be done. You got to figure out the right carrier for them and all that. But I think that's the. That's what has me most excited. And when I see these leads come through that book their own appointments is that. That's what I like. I like to help people. I like to walk them through the process. I don't ever want to walk out of there feeling like I just had to sell them on it. Right.

You can feel icky sometimes. Somebody's arm.

Yeah. And you never know how long those policies are going to stay on the books. Right. When you. When you walk them through the process and you leave there and they. They tell you they feel really good about what they just did, and, you know, that's. That's why I'm in this business.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so let's see. Honestly, I'm excited to see where we go from here and pull up my calculator right here on my computer. I want to see what 6300. 6300 divided by 350 is.

So right now you're at an 18 to 1 return on ad spend.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, this business, we all know this business has highs and lows. The last, the last, the last few days have been a high for sure. Next two or three days could, could bottom out and I could make no, you know, so I told, I've been in the business long enough to know and those highs and the peaks and valleys don't bother me anymore. I know that's just part of this, but yeah, it's, it's super exciting just because of the timing of, of the high. Maybe it's not a high. You know, maybe that, maybe this becomes the new norm as people like the videos, the video ads and they book their own appointments. I mean, maybe this does become the new norm. I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna bank on it yet, but it's, it's been a fun, it's been a fun ride.

Yeah. And with the whole videos, I mean this is all, we're all just kind of like, we're discovering new land as we go. Like the new norm may be that for local leads. I don't know. I mean normally I've kind of set expectations at like 15, 17, sometimes 12 bucks, but you know, seven to eight for local leads. I mean that's, that's ridiculous. But we're, we're seeing what's possible with these videos for life insurance and I'm excited to see what happens when we, when we test some of those like the fun hooks. Yeah.

We talked about it earlier.

Yep.

Yeah. I mean, Dan, you've been, you've been a pleasure to work with. I've been like, I've been really happy to see you implement what, like we get what we've given you because a lot of people, they'll, they'll get something and then they just won't, they won't work it. There's never been a question of whether or not you're gonna go out and work the lead. So it helps us get good feedback on what's working with our and what's not. Because we can like if we, if leads come into your, in your pipeline, they're getting worked and we're finding out if they're working. Yeah, that's been, that's been huge for us personally. But yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for, for allowing us to, to do that.

Yeah.

Patient.

Well, and I kind of want, I kind of want, Yeah, I kind of want to say the same thing back because I'm, I'm a self admitted idiot when it Comes to some of this stuff. Right. I told you from the beginning, I never even had Facebook until now. So, you know, there's a lot that I just truly rely on you guys for and your patience with a guy like me that doesn't have much knowledge of it. I. I want to be out knocking on knees, you know? Yeah. I want. I want to be selling. I want to be selling and helping families. Right. And. And so you guys have done an absolute awesome job at kind of helping me out on the marketing side. So I would. I'd say the same thing back to you guys.

Awesome. Well, I gotta say, man, we appreciate having you as well. I'm excited to see where we go from here. Anything else you want to add in before we. We, you know, cut this video to an end?

No, I'm excited to see where we go as well. Off to an awesome start with these video ads, and I'm looking forward to getting a little more creative with you guys on them.

Let's do it. Awesome. All right, real quick, guys. If you. If you guys want to get a similar setup to what Dan got, I'll have a link down below this video. It'll be a link to John, our account success manager's calendar, and he can help walk you guys through the process of getting set up. Whenever you do, you'll get a video, you'll get a couple photo ads, and we're really excited to, you know, make some more case studies. Like Dan, we got Johnny, we got Dan. Who's going to be next? Will it be you, or will it be somebody else? We'll see you guys next. Next video.

Take care.