After high school, Dan Muniz’s first full-time job was at a warehouse taking orders for food service companies. He then enlisted in the army and served for five and a half years. After he was injured in combat, he medically retired on a disability pension. At first, he thought he’d retire but decided against it in the end. He held a few retail jobs but was unhappy, so he went on Indeed and saw that a local insurance agency was hiring and willing to pay for licensing.
“I applied thinking he probably wouldn’t hire me,” Muniz remembers. But he got the interview. “The morning of the interview, I had to rush over to my job because someone had stolen cash. Long story short, I I went to the interview in gym clothes because he told me to come by anyway. I thought I bombed because of that, but he liked me.”
The agency owner said he liked Muniz’s smooth way of talking during the hour-long interview and offered him the job. After three months, Muniz became sales manager and stayed on for three years. He then went to work at State Farm for 17 months but went back to Indeed and found the Raymund Paderas Agency, where he’s been working for two years and hopes to one day own.
When Muniz first started out as an agent, the agency where he worked was only buying live transfer calls. Muniz was doing very well with those, but then the owner changed it up to 20 data leads a day. “My sales went down, and he was upset with me even though data leads are harder to close,” explains Muniz.
At the second agency where he worked, the owner refused live leads and would only spend $25 a data lead. Muniz didn’t have a good experience there either. However, at the Raymund Paderas Agency, where he is now sales manager, the owner appreciates Muniz’s input, and they make decisions about leads together.
“Ray and I tried Allstate marketplace’s data leads. Not terrible. We tried a couple of other lead vendors and then we found SmartFinancial,” he says. “I told my account manager my budget, and she set up one filter on both the data leads and live transfers.”
When Muniz sells a policy, he usually goes on to sell multiple-policies with the same lead. In addition to auto, home, umbrella, renters, business and life insurance, he even sells pet insurance, which has become very popular.
“I’m very happy with SmartFinancial and to be at the Raymund Paderas Agency today,” Muniz says. “My goal is to buy this agency when Raymund decides to retire. That will be in 7 to 10 years, and until then we’re both growing the book together, knowing that we’ll both get passive income eventually.”
6 Golden Sales Tips From Dan Muniz
- Have realistic expectations of your team. Our agency owner is realistic: He knows everyone has a bad month.
- Don’t blame the quality of the leads. If it was the quality, I wouldn’t be successful with one filter.
- If you're spending money and not making sales, look at the way you are coaching the team. Sometimes it’s your coaching and sometimes it’s time to start letting people go.
- Call twice back-to-back, not just once. Double tap is important with data leads. If they don’t answer, call right back. If they are annoyed, just say, “ I'm sorry, I was going to leave you a message to call me at your earliest convenience.” Or, just start talking.
- Use a lead manager that automates tasks for you so your follow up is set up for you. Our follow-up goes up 75 days and tapers down to every 3 days towards the end.
- Don’t leave voicemail. Don’t text and email asking if the lead wants a quote. If you do text/email, do it only after speaking to them first.
