New insurance agents ask all the time whether it would make sense for them to hire an appointment setter.
There is a simple answer to this question: if you can see that it will help, then yes.
It is ultimately going to come down to a math problem.
First, you’re going to need to have the money to cover the position. Sounds obvious, but you need to be making enough money that you are able to continue paying yourself and then cover another person. If you aren’t a good closer, it’s probably not a good idea to try to juggle paying another salary.
Now, let’s get to that math problem.
Cost to benefit of an appointment setter
If you are ready to hire an appointment setter, first you have to decide how you will pay them. Will you pay them by the hour or pay them commission?
Our suggestion is to pay them an hourly wage and, if you can afford it, have them work about 20 hours a week setting appointments for you.
If it sounds costly, it really isn’t. Suppose you pay your appointment setter $12 per hour. That’s $240 per week. As long as they’re setting appointments at a good clip for you, you’ll quickly make that salary up if you’re able to close even 25% of them. At that rate, you could even offer some sort of bonus for kept appointments.
Smiling and dialing is a unique skill. If you aren’t that great at it, find someone who is and you do what you’re best at — closing.
Know your numbers
To make sure this will continue to be fruitful venture for both yourself and your appointment setter, you need to know your numbers:
- What is an average commission you make from a sale?
- How many of those sales do you need to make to cover your salary and the appointment setter?
- What is your average close percentage? (How many appointments do you sit with before you make a sale?)
- So, how many kept appointments do you need?
- Say about only a third of your appointments are kept (or whatever average you typically see), how many appointments do you need them to then set?
This now needs to be your weekly system. In the meantime, you can work to improve your close percentage and they can also work on keeping more appointments. Let me know if I can help in that department.
I work with insurance agents every week on systems they can use with an appointment setter, improving close percentage, and much more.