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In our first installment, we gave you tips from Alex Fitzgerald on how to approach traveling sales so you won’t end up breaking the bank. We’re going to pick up where we left off and go over important things to keep in mind when budgeting your trip, making the sale, and calculating your final profit.

As we said before, before you set foot in your car to drive out to a sale, make sure you’ve got the sales system down pat (we can’t stress this enough!). Otherwise, you’ll be driving further out for further expense without increasing your profit! Play it safe; get the hang of selling before venturing out into the wild blue yonder.

Travel Smart by Cutting Back on Costs

Alex gave us these factors to consider when making trips for sales. You may want to spend more money on food or other factors, but this breakdown shows the least expensive approach. If you do make more expensive choices, make sure to review the expense and factor that into what type of sales numbers you’ll need to make!

“Expense for 1 ½ days of Sales:

40 A-leads x $21.95 = $878*

Hotel – $80

Rental Car – $60 (or $0… drive there yourself)

Airfare = $250 (or $0… drive there yourself)

Food = $0 (pack your own)”

*For purposes of clarification, example lead costs were used. Adjust according to your own situation

This is assuming you’re using premium leads. Agents sometimes snatch these up because they believe they’re guaranteed sales. However, if you’re a good salesman, you can work discounted leads with less expense.

Remember, you don’t have to buy premium leads! People like Mike Lewantowicz and Patrick Connors are making a huge profit with buying low on discounted leads. This can be a great way to help you save money while getting appointments.

Research what type of discounts you can get on airfare, hotels, and cars through travel sites such as Priceline, Hotwire, Expedia and more!

Factor in your Income and make projections before you go.

Making a profit in sales involves looking forward and projecting how many sales you’ll eventually have to make in order to both cover your expenses and make a profit. If you are investing a large amount of money into premium leads, you then have more of an expense to cover. 

60% of 40 A leads = 24 appointments.

70% x 24 = 17. You should write around $17K.

17K x 55%* = $9,350

$9350 x 75% issue rate = $7,012.50

$7,012.50 x 80% advance (the backend will come months 10,11,12) = $5,610

*Sample commission rate used. Adjust to your own situation.

Notice that the amount decreases in each step of making a sale. This is why you should look all the way down the line of production to the very end.

Agents should also note the 80% advance number very carefully;  if you don’t consider the fact the entire amount of money is yet to arrive, you could fall victim to the dreaded chargeback! This is why it’s very important to budget for chargebacks and not spend your money too quickly.

Give your clients the attention they want and need!

Because of the distance between you and your clients, you may not put as much effort into keeping in touch or making sure they understand their policy. We encourage you to take your time interviewing the client, as well as delivering the policy. Distance can make it a bit more challenging, but keeping communication lines strong between you and your client is the key to maintaining persistency.

“If the agent is applying the Client for Life principles, making extra sales, getting referrals, then the lead requirement will drop. If the agent is smart, he will also recruit in this area so he doesn’t have to go there forever. That way, when he goes in, he can also do a Sales Meeting/Opportunity Meeting.”

Alex says that lack of dedication to travel sales is a big problem in the industry:

“They don’t take the time to keep in touch with their clients… they don’t personally deliver their policies; giving themselves an extra chance to (1) make sure the client knows what they bought and why, (2) make extra sales, (3) get referrals.”

Travelling Sales isn’t for everyone.

Our final piece of advice about traveling sales is that it’s not for everyone. Like we highlighted in our last post, doing travel for a sale is a way to compress production that would usually take a month into a weekend. It takes a good bit of skill to do, and maybe more importantly, there are already opportunities at home. Alex reminded us of this before the end of our conversation before leaving:

“When you look at all leads available, there is very little reason to travel outside of driving distance (within 3-4 hours of home).”

But if you want to see big numbers and are willing to do the work, travelling for sales can be a profitable venture in mining untapped opportunities!