I read some interesting stats today on consumer debt. In 2008, the average American household had over $10,000 in credit card debt and more than half carried regular balances over $7000 (source: CardWeb.com). That means as debt counselor you have a lot of work to do.

Educating Consumers About Debt

The most effective way to get a consumer help is by educating them. Chances are that these debt weary consumers are in trouble because they lack good financial education. They don’t understand how to manage money, much less debt.

This makes credit a very dangerous lure.

Teaching your debt workout customers the basics of personal finance and responsible use of credit is a necessary first step. This will put them on the right track to financial recovery and earn you the trust you need to negotiate or counsel them out of debt.

Making Debt Counseling Understandable

Debt education sounds easy, but to most of those with debt troubles it’s like rocket science. Numbers, interest rates, late fees, settlement, repayment–these are all words that tighten their chest with anxiety.

You need to make it simple and fun. This debt workout infographic from Mint.com could be just one tool in helping to educate potential debt customers.

The Right Solution to Debt

The most important objective in offering debt solutions is getting the consumer to the right debt workout program for their situation. Walking them through a good process of educating them on debt, reviewing their financial situation, and guiding them to the most advantageous debt workout is a job you should be proud of.

It’s ironic how often we avoid change, even when we know that our current plan is falling short. This is my daily conversation with mortgage, debt, and insurance businesses. They often pick up the phone and call me when their sales are falling flat.

The question is will you try something new?

Cheaper Sales Leads

If your current marketing budget isn’t yielding the same number of sales or your ROI is way out of whack, it’s time to make a change.

Typically increasing your marketing spend isn’t an option. So that leaves you will finding out how to get your marketing for less or changing tactics. In both cases aged Internet leads may be the right marketing option to consider.

If you’re currently buying more expensive real-time Internet leads then aged leads can get you more leads for less money. If you have never tried Internet leads it can be a cheap way to get started.

More Leads, Bigger Database

Regardless of your current marketing and sales scenario aged leads can be a smart move. The current economy has made everyone cautious. This means sales cycles for financial products like mortgages and insurance are going to get longer. The simple solution to keeping your revenue consistent or even growing is to increase the top of the funnel.

You need to get more sales leads and build a bigger prospecting database. Aged leads can help that strategy.

Lead Management Helps with More Leads

The only problem with a volume-based marketing strategy is that you need to get more efficient at managing leads. My recommendation is getting a good lead management software and programming a smart lead nurturing process. This will keep you top of mind and significantly improve your ROI.

Give aged leads a try and see how you really can get more sales for less money!

Health insurance companies were some of the most vocal and aggressive adversaries of Democratic Health Reform, but now that it’s law insurers are getting on board. And the reasons are obvious if you look at the numbers.

Big Surge in Health Insurance Customers Ahead

The Congressional Budget Office just released its estimates that 95% of Americans will be covered by 2016, when the health reform bill is fully implemented. That means adding 32 million new health insurance customers to their industry.

Of Course, Health Insurance Industry On Board

In a recent Time.com article, health insurers shift their support to healthcare reform:

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry trade group, has agreed to sign on to a new, 50-state health care reform implementation effort, provisionally called Enroll America, which is being organized by Ron Pollack of the pro-reform group Families USA. “We are participating in it,” says AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. “The goal is to get everyone covered.”

Marketing for These New Health Insurance Customers

I don’t know about you, but this looks like a big opportunity to help a lot of new customers. The question is: How do you get in front of all these new customers?

You can guarantee all these new insurance candidate are going to rush to the Web to figure out what they need. They are going to be looking for experts to guide them to the right insurance products and coverage.

This is going to make Internet leads, and aged health insurance leads the ideal solution for your insurance business. Combining the efficiency of buying interested and qualified prospects with a good health insurance education sales process will grow your business in this new market.

Small businesses, like most mortgage, debt, or insurance companies struggle to do all the things necessary to provide stable revenue. Most are only a few people and everyone wears a variety of hats, from accounting to sales to marketing. This makes it hard to do any of it well.

This is the challenge. How do you get predictable revenue out of a business that is constantly juggling priorities and focus? One thing is for sure–consistent revenue requires steady approach to marketing and sales.

Sales is Probably Your Expertise

My guess is that your expertise is sales. That’s where you should be focusing most of your efforts. It doesn’t work out that way does it?

You work your leads hard, but cold calling and prospecting can be a lot of work for little gain. Most sales people end up spending too much time hunting. This process of directly prospecting, touching every person just to see if they are interested, is very inefficient.

What you need is a little marketing to bring in warmer leads.

Marketing Can Be Neglected

Unfortunately, what you need is getting neglected. This happens for one of two reasons: You don’t know how to get started or you simply aren’t that good at it.

This neglect send you into a panic when the sales pipeline gets low. Then even the little bit of marketing that you do pull off gets done poorly. Again, resulting in too much effort for too little results.

Both Marketing and Sales Need Consistency

Your efforts constantly jump from marketing to sales as your pipeline goes from empty to full. Unfortunately, your revenue goes through the same volatile cycles. You need to find a way to smooth out these gyrations.

The key to predictable revenue is predictable marketing and sales. Aged Internet leads can help.

Since most marketing and advertising is designed as a broadcast it can be very expensive–random direct mail, newspaper ads, or cable spots. The advantage of aged Internet leads is that you get the professional lead generation and targeting of real-time Internet leads, but at a steep discount.

This can steady your marketing efforts and keep you focused on selling to qualified sales leads.

How are you doing your insurance marketing now? Have you ever tried aged health insurance leads? Do you want to find out how to make more sales and spend less on marketing?

My guess is that this might be a lot easier than you suspect. Whether you are spending top dollar on expensive marketing, like real-time Internet leads or display ads in publication, we have an interesting new marketing approach for you to try–aged insurance leads.

Internet Insurance Leads Helps Qualify Prospects

Think for a moment about your current marketing methods. Are you marketing to a targeted audience? Are you consistently getting responses from people that are looking for your insurance services? Or are you paying to simply shout into a random and faceless crowd of people?

The latter, right?

This is a huge advantage of Internet insurance leads. You only buy qualified prospects. You get the finished product from professional marketers who very efficiently solve the problem of advertising and attracting insurance customers. You only get the ones that sign-up and say, “Yes I want someone to call and help me with insurance.”

Aged Leads Makes Marketing Cheaper

As you might imagine doing this in real-time can be powerful–connecting you and a prospect in real-time. However, that is almost as expensive as other marketing strategies you may already be using. But, let me reveal a secret…

Thousands of these Internet customer inquiries go unanswered (unsold) every day. They literally are prospects that are disappointingly dropped on the floor…abandoned. This is where you can seize a great opportunity.

Many of these abandoned customer leads are available through Internet lead brokers (like myself). People that try to help find more demand in the market to buy and help these customers. Your advantage in buying Internet leads like this? Aged leads are deeply discounted and available to you at a fraction of the price.

It’s true you get the same professionally generated Internet insurance leads at a fraction of the original price.

More Insurance Leads Means More Sales.

It’s no secret that America is swimming in debt. With the average household carrying about $10,000 in credit card debt alone there is no shortage of people to help. However, from your seat you may be wondering why it is so hard to find people asking for debt workout solutions.

Maybe you’re looking (marketing) in the wrong places.

If you are looking for a new source of debt settlement leads here are a few things you should know about Aged Debt Leads as a marketing option.

1. Aged debt leads are cheap

At first, this seems to be the most important thing to most of my new prospects. However, as they become clients and use aged leads consistently in their business it just becomes an added bonus.

2. Aged debt leads are a steady flow of prospects

One of the nice things about aged leads being affordable is that you can order a steady stream of new prospects. Unlike real-time Internet leads or other more expensive marketing you can afford a steady supply of new leads, which will even out the ebbing and flowing of your revenue.

3. Aged debt leads are qualified leads

Unlike more traditional marketing sources, i.e., Yellow page ads, newspaper listings, or local display ads, you are buying qualified prospects–not broadcasting to the masses. Aged debt leads are ideal because you are getting people that not only want to be called, but have already told you that they need help solving their debt problems.

4. Aged debt leads can be filtered for your region

Another advantage of the marketing methods used to generate aged debt leads is that you can filter these leads. That means you not only get people that want your help with debt, but you can also get people in your local area.

5. Aged debt leads are motivated debt consumers

Finally, and probably most importantly, aged debt leads give you the opportunity to talk to motivated prospects.

You’re not cold calling households and prying into their debt–often a personal and embarrassing topic to discuss. No, you are getting people that are holding up their hands and saying, “Please help me figure out how to get rid of this mountain of debt.”

The US government has literally turned the health insurance industry on its ear. The latest healthcare reform legislation has changed the landscape for every insurance agent in the market. Your challenge now is to adjust your insurance business to the new world.

Lots of Health Insurance Questions

The biggest opportunity that I see is the need for education in the market. Literally millions of new insurance customers are going to be coming into the market with tons of questions. The smart health insurance business is gearing up with answers.

I would be finding an efficient way to acquire these curious new customers and getting them into my education program. This could be a newsletter, regular emails, a blog, or maybe just an old fashioned phone call. In any case start writing down and sales scripting what you think are going to be the top 10 questions when this new healthcare legislation goes into full effect.

Current Clients Need Your Guidance

In all of the excitement to gather in all this new business, don’t neglect you existing clients. Even though they have health insurance or other insurance coverage through you the media is probably filling their heads with questions.

Make sure you are touching base with all of them. Get them plugged into a regular education (marketing) campaign too. Explain to them in simple language what all this means to them. Encourage them to call you with any questions or new insurance needs. Remind them to refer their friends and neighbors, which may not be so lucky to have a helpful insurance broker, to you.

32 Million New Health Insurance Customers

The bottom line is that there are 32 million new health insurance customers about to hit the Internet looking for answers. How are you going to get them funneled into you? I just happen to have access to thousands of health insurance leads a day–this might be a good start.

Then all you have to focus on is scripting out your health education sales process.

Are you an active Internet lead buyer? Do you feel like you might be paying too much for real-time Internet leads? Even worse, are you getting ready to buy Internet leads for the first time without reading this special report first?

Internet lead generation is certainly the secret to most mortgage, debt, and insurance businesses dramatic growth over the last several years. However, there may be part of this secret that is eluding you–the Secret of Aged Leads.

In this exclusive report, you’ll learn the secrets to closing these cheap Internet leads at rates that may convince you cheaper is better.

Here is a sample of the tips inside:

• The best time to call Internet leads
• How to use email to increase contact rates
• Tips to improve call sales scripts
• Techniques for building trust on the phone
• Increasing conversion with lead management

Not only will you learn how to close these less expensive Internet leads, but you will improve your overall sales processes. This report compiles the 10 secrets that I have seen consistently boost my aged lead clients’ sales. Now these secrets are yours for FREE.

Get instant access to this free report now. Simply fill out the form to the right (or below).
Learn to close more sales with cheaper Internet leads.

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A lack of sales can usually be tracked to one of a few problem areas. Getting rid of these common sales problems is really easier (and cheaper) than you might think. A business strategy built around aged Internet lead and good lead management processes could be the solution to a banner year for your mortgage, debt, or insurance business.

1. Not Enough Sales Leads

This always seems to be a problem, right? We hit a good run and have a full sales pipeline and then it seems to winnow away–sending us into a marketing panic. Stop scrambling from month-to-month looking for where you are going to get new people to talk to and find an affordable marketing method that will keep your sales queue full.

Aged Internet leads can be this cheap source of qualified leads.

2. Expensive Marketing

Most marketing is expensive. Add to this the uncertainty of getting the right kind of responses. Think about the traditional approached you have used in the past: Yellow pages, newspapers, magazines, local businesses or displays. I call this “hope marketing.” You are broadcasting your service and message–hoping the right people see it and call.

Aged Internet leads are a way that you can buy only those prospects that are truly qualified and opted-in for your call.

3. Unqualified Sales Leads

Mostly because of the marketing methods, but still a big problem is the amount of your marketing budget wasted on unqualified sales leads.

This is one of the big advantages of Internet marketing and aged leads in particular. These leads are qualified through a series of questions on the Web form that self-identifies the scenarios and conditions of their financial service needs. Allowing you to carefully filter out and buy only the customers that you can help.

4. Failure to Follow-up

So, we’ve solved all the marketing problems. If you’re still not making your sales numbers then chances are you have a lead management problem. And the number one lead management problem is a failure to follow-up.

Since most of us start our businesses small we are quite efficient at using our email inbox as a CRM. But, as you grow you will start to miss critical follow-ups. This is why designing a good lead management process is critical to buying large volumes of cheap aged Internet leads.

5. Sales Pipelines that Don’t Produce

Similar to failure to follow-up a sales pipeline that doesn’t produce is probably linked to how you manage your leads. Sales requires constant activity, follow-up, and pressure on your leads. If you abandon these people in your pipeline then they will drift away.

Make sure that you have a lead management process that keeps marketing to every lead in your pipeline–puttin you in a good position to be top of mind when that person is ready to buy.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

As a sales agent you always have to be on the lookout for leads to close sales. Leads come fresh and aged and it’s your call to decide if you want to stock up on the former or latter depending on your budget and sales strategy. Fresh leads are best used by those agents who are very responsive and experienced in their field of business and will be most likely to close sales. Otherwise you will burn through marketing dollars very fast working fresh leads.

Aged leads, on the other hand are perfect to stock up on for your power dialar. They come very reasonably priced, can be bought in large quantities without the fear of overrunning your budget, and are great tools to use in building the confidence of your sales force.  

Here is how Aged Debt Leads can add more power to your Power Dialer:  

1. Make more calls per day – Aged debt leads come cheap. This means you have more prospects at hand to make calls to when you buy these leads in bulk. Your power dialer can be used to its full potential as it places call after call to the aged debt leads fed into your CRM system. Calling more leads means higher probability of talking to more leads and closing more sales.
2. Building the CRM database – Stocking up on aged debt leads is a great way to build your sales database. This data can be classified based on lead profiles and sales call strategy and then used by your power dialer to make calls to prospects in the order of importance to you. For example, based on the age of the leads, location of the leads and so on.
3. Aged debt leads and power dialers make a great training combination – Your business can use aged debt leads to train its sales agents in your sales process. This saves you valuable dollars. If you were to use fresh leads to train agents you would be wasting a lot of marketing dollars on mistakes and inexperience. With cheap aged leads every lead closed during training is a bonus and returns quick value. As the agent becomes more confident in the use of the power dialer, they can then graduate to using the dialer to contact fresh leads.
4. Aged debt leads decrease the power dialer downtime – The higher the number of aged debt leads you procure, the greater the use of your power dialer and the lower the agent downtime. If you are a call center, you would want to maximize the returns on your investment. The best way to do this is invest in aged debt leads instead of loading in random names and numbers of people who are not your prospects.
5. Aged leads are genuine leads – Stocking up on these aged leads for your power dialer is focusing you dialing power on real prospects. Random lists and dials is a sheer waste of time and frustrating to your sales force–contacting people not interested in your product and causing demotivating backlash at your sales agents.

Therefore, if you are looking at maximizing lead conversions and reducing your downtime, the best option is to use a combination of aged debt leads and the power dialer for your business.