Standard program details

The objective of our pre-set appointment programs is to get our clients in front of a prospect that has the requisite assets to work with them, and a willingness to consider the options that you may present. We aim to consistently get you qualified appointments so that you are able to do what you do best, sell. Since we began booking Premier annuity appointments over five years ago, the average agent has closed over one third of the appointments that we book for them.  Having booked tens of thousands of annuity appointments to date, we know what works, what doesn’t work, and how to make the most out of your marketing dollars.  

Over the years we have learned that nothing can compare to the direct mail annuity lead, and we can tell you we’ve certainly tried everything else. We’ve tried using internet leads, unfortunately, we saw less consistency with these then direct mail, not to mention we were never sold on the quality. We’ve helped agents set up referral programs to try to get the most out of their client base, which has worked but never to the degree that most agents are looking for. At one point we actually hired a national consultant to come in and train our team to start a new division cold calling for annuity appointments. We watched as our appointment costs skyrocketed, and we learned that most people aren’t willingly to blindly go over the amount of financial information that we ask for over the phone. At the end of it all we were still consistently succeeding with the same process that we’d used from the very beginning. Sending out direct mail, waiting for people to respond, and then calling and booking appointments based off of the card that they returned. Quite simply, it works.  

There are a number of things that make up a good pre-set annuity appointment, first and foremost being that the client knows who you are, and why you’re coming by to meet with them. Every agent that works with us is asked to fill out a biography form with some basic information, such as how long you’ve been in the business, what you specialize in, any degree’s or certifications you may have, etc. Having this information can make a world of a difference in helping to ensure that the prospect feels comfortable with who is coming by to meet with them. Our average appointment call takes between 8 and 10 minutes to set, as we ask a number of questions pertaining to the clients current financial situation. After every appointment is booked you receive a sheet detailing the clients answers to every question, helping you to prepare for whatever situation the client might be in and how you might be able to help them. All of these things come together to make up a great pre-set appointment. At the end of the day, what matters most is that you’re consistently sitting in front of new prospects that give you the opportunity to write new business. That is what we do best.

 Let Premier show you what we can do to take your production to the next level!

Each Program follows a timeline that approximates the following:

Day 1
Order placed-Contract completed- Payment made (all three items must be done to have an order placed).

Late Day 1 or Early Day 2
Mailing print order sent to printing house (actual date is dependent on when during business day order was placed).

Day 2 thru Day3
Printing and shipping to Postal Service

Day 4
Postal mailing is performed.

Day 7-15
Phone center contacts agent for biography and availability information.

Day 18-25
Mail begins to return.  The bulk of mail typically arrives in the first week of returns. Actual response time is largely dependent on the postal service and distance of the agent from Massachusetts (i.e. Mail to California will typically take longer than mail to Indiana which will take longer than mail to Connecticut). Incoming mail goes to data entry the day it arrives and it will be called within 24 business hours of arrival.

Day 19-26
Call center begins calling leads that are returned. Additional incoming mail goes to data entry and gets called within 24 business hours of arrival.

Days 27-90
Call center continues to call to book appointments. Mail continues to straggle in.  All mail goes to data entry and is called within 24 business hours of arrival.

Any appointment that is booked more than 24 business hours in advance will have a confirmation call made the last business day before the appointment. The Premier Annuity Prospects policy is to make a minimum of 3 attempts to confirm the appointment with the prospect. If we have not managed to speak with the prospect on the third attempt a message will be left reminding the prospect of the appointment, and leaving our 800 number should they need to reschedule.  If the prospect has no means of recording a message (no voicemail or answering machine) a minimum of 5 attempts will be made to confirm the appointment. The only exception to this policy is if the prospect requested that a message be left while making the original appointment. In such a case the prospects directions will be followed on the first attempt.

Looking carefully at this timeline, one is likely to notice that appointments will largely be spread over approximately 10 weeks of a 13 week period. With a mailing of 2500 - 3000 pieces of mail the agent is likely to average a little over 1 appointment each week. However, this is not how they will likely come in.

Because the bulk of the agents’ mail responses are likely to come in during a period of approximately one week, it is not uncommon to have an early rush of scheduled appointments which then tapers off.  It would not be surprising to see an appointment schedule that is 4 appointments scheduled in week 4, 2 appointments each in weeks 5 & 6, and 1 appointment every other week for the remainder of the contract. This is largely because some people will be easy to reach by telephone, but most will take multiple attempts to reach. Once we have contacted the easy to reach prospects the number of appointments scheduled per week generally slows down. This is one of the reasons we suggest frequent mailings.

There are a number of mail factors that can affect the success of a given program. Some of them the agent will be able to control, others the agent will not.  To maximize the effectiveness of any program, it is imperative that the agent make the best decisions in regards to those factors that are within his/her control.

There are several factors of which the agent has direct control, including; the demographics to which the mailing is made, quantity of mail, relative affluence of the area to which is mailed, frequency of mailing, and availability. The agent will not have direct control of; individual response decisions, population density, and natural disasters affecting the mailing area.

Demographics – There are 3 criterion Premier Annuity Prospects uses in determining to which addresses a mailing will be made; age, household income, and property ownership/value. Prospective recipients are age 60-78, with a household income of $50,000.00 or more, and own a home with a property value of $200,000.00 or more.

Quantity of mail - Response rates vary in different areas of the country, but as a national average approximately 2% of the recipients will respond. Response to the mailing is only an expression of interest in receiving information. It does not guarantee that the respondent will be of an age to which the agent will be able to offer a viable product, that the respondent will have the requisite assets to purchase such a product, or even that the respondent will be interested in meeting with the agent.

Relative affluence of the mailing area – Areas that are particularly affluent (those with millions of dollars in liquid assets) do not respond well to mailings. Affluence is often indicative of a higher level of education. The well educated generally have not only recognized the need to plan for their future, but also to have done so.  There is a flood of marketing that targets this portion of the population.  While one can be successful marketing to this portion of the population, you will not be successful marketing to this demographic at a price comparable to our Programs and our programs do not perform well for this portion of the population. 

The mailings from Premier Annuity Prospects perform best with those prospects that have $50,000.00 to $500,000.00 in investible assets. The advantage of this portion of the population is that very little marketing has been done to target their business. These prospects are also less likely to have planned for their retirement or the disposition of their estate. Subsequently, they have a higher incidence of response to mailers.

Frequency of mailing
The best way for an agent to keep their schedule full is to control how frequently they have the rush of appointments from a new mailing. The harder to reach people from each mailing then round out thier schedule as the tapered frequency of appointments from multiple mailings overlap.

Let’s look at an example of the difference between a single mailing over a 13 week period and 3 mailings with the second mailing made 3 weeks after the first and the third mailing made 3 weeks after the second.

Using the example given just after the timeline as to frequency of appointments, and with a single mailing, beginning week 4 the agent will have an appointment per week schedule that looks something like:  4,2,2,1,0,1,0,1,0,1

With the second mailing that schedule becomes; 4,2,2,5,2,3,1,2,1,2

 With the third mailing the schedule becomes; 4,2,2,5,2,3,5,4,3,3 

As you can see, with regular mailing agents are able to fill the gaps in their schedule.

Availability
The more flexible the agents schedule and the more time that is available for the call center to book appointments the easier it will be to book appointments. If the times the agent has made available are very specific and limited it becomes harder to book appointments.

For example, should an agent give the call center 2 appointment slots on Tuesday and Thursday this week, (let us say at 11am and 2pm each day) it becomes more difficult to book appointments with each appointment booked. One person may not be available one of those days, or cannot meet in the morning, etc… as you can see either of these considerations would limit the individual to 2 timeslots in the week (or one slot if both were to apply. If one or more of those is already booked or due to the prospects limited availability they had already made plans for that time, no appointment can be booked, regardless of the willingness or qualification of the prospect.

This is why the call center asks for a fixed schedule of availability (or at minimum the following 2 full weeks each week), thus enabling the call center to move the appointment to a different date that is open for both the agent and the prospect.

Our preference is to book the appointment for a date as close to the date of the call as possible. These appointments are the strongest and the least likely to have something happen that causes the prospect to cancel or need to reschedule. However, we will take the first date and time that works for both the agent and the prospect. The more availability you have given the call center the sooner and stronger that appointment will be.

One of the worst things that can happen in the call center is that we have a willing and qualified prospect on the phone and the agent has no time available to meet that will work for the prospect. It may be weeks before we manage to get the prospect on the phone again. Do not give the prospect the opportunity to decide that you specifically are not the agent for them as you are not available when they need you to be.

Home appointments are the strongest appointments. The prospect will have their financial materials available to themselves and the agent there. However, there will be a portion of the prospect population that will not be comfortable having the agent come into the home. If the agent has an office Premier Annuity Prospects encourages the agent to provide that information so that a prospect can be seen in the office. Office appointments are only made at the request of the client.

Individual response decisions – The potential prospects decision to respond to a mailing is one over which the agent has no direct control. The best that one can do is to maximize response by choosing two things;   a mailing card that has a proven response and a carefully selected mailing area.

Population density – There is only 1 sure way to ensure you personally will have sufficient population density for your mailings and that is to live in an area that has the largest possible population of the proper demographics.  Failing that an agent needs to be willing to travel to the areas with the correct demographics. If neither of these situations apply, our programs may for a short while work for you, but will not offer you a viable long term solution.

Natural disaster – Any disaster that affects the population in the agents mailing area as a whole will affect that agents mailing. Should people in your mailing area be displaced or postal delivery services be interrupted, your mailing, and thus your program will suffer.

There are 4 services an agent receives with the Premier Annuity Prospects Appointment Programs; The printing and mailing on the agents behalf, the calling performed by the call center to book appointments for the agent, first right of refusal to any appointments generated from that mailing to the agent, and any information obtained as pertains to any appointment booked for the agent (i.e. the appointment itself).

The Mailing – For many programs, 50% or more of the cost of the program, is the cost of printing the mail pieces, and the postal costs to send and receive the postage pre-paid return mailer. Premier Annuity Prospects is not selling the mailing list, nor are we selling the responses from the mailing list.

Calling by the Call center – Premier Annuity Prospects runs a call center dedicated to calling the responses from mailings. The call center rotates the days of the week as well as times during the day in which calls are made on behalf of the agent. This is to maximize the possibility of reaching every respondent. When dealing with responses from a small number of mailings or a single mailing, the call center will not call for the agent every day. This is to prevent overcalling. 

The call center makes thousands of calls daily. Calling all respondents for an individual agent with only a few mailings worth of responses is accomplished in a matter of minutes. An individual agent who does not have a pool of several hundred of responses with which to work, risks aggravating the respondents into refusing further contact if the call center calls more than two or three times in a single week. If the agent has multiple hundreds of responses, the calling can be broken up throughout the week to allow for calling each day without risking overcalling the prospects.

If we are unable to call for an agent daily, the number of appointments that agent receives will be lower than if we can call each day. A single bad day of calling will more heavily impact an agent with a smaller number of responses than one with a larger number of responses. This is another reason that we recommend multiple mailings.

First Right of Refusal
The agent is purchasing First Right of Refusal to any appointments booked as a result of responses to the mailing done on their behalf. Refusing to go to an appointment does not indemnify the agent to the billing for that appointment. Premier Annuity Prospects has fulfilled its obligation by booking the appointment and, should an agent refuse to go to an appointment booked as a result of the responses from their mailing, Premier Annuity Prospects reserves the right to find another agent to assume that appointment. If Premier Annuity Prospects is unable to find a replacement agent for the appointment, the agent on whose behalf the mailing was made will be held liable for any billing associated to that appointment.

Appointment specific information
Premier Annuity Prospects forwards to the agent a detailed appointment sheet for each appointment that has been booked from their mailing(s) responses. Included on the appointment sheet is the following information concerning the client(s), Name(s), Age(s), Address, Phone Number, and their responses to a number of questions in regards to their finances and any retirement or estate planning they have done. 

The determination of whether an appointment is qualified is made from two (2) factors; The prospect has stated to Premier Annuity Prospects that they have Investible/Liquid assets of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000.00) or more, and at least one of the prospects is 78 or younger. All other information obtained is provided to the agent to assist them in preparing a presentation for the prospect.

Only Premier Annuity Prospects has the ability to determine which appointments are qualified under its programs. Information provided by the agent may be considered in this determination and Premier Annuity Prospects reserves the right to waive billing of any appointment.