New book aiming to help create top-producing final expense agents will also benefit Mark Rosenthal

Insurance Forums member David Duford (screen name: Rearden) has just published a new book for aspiring Final Expense agents, and he is donating proceeds from the first month of book sales to fellow forum member Mark Rosenthal.

Rosenthal, as many forum members are aware, is battling Multiple Sclerosis and is about to embark on a trip to Mexico for an experimental treatment that has the potential to halt the progression of the autoimmune disease of the central nervous system.

After extensive fund-raising efforts, including several thousands dollars contributed by Insurance Forums members, Rosenthal leaves later this month to begin Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) in Mexico, which will be followed by a long, intensive (and expensive) recovery period.

Duford’s new book, “The Official Guide to Selling Final Expense Insurance: The Proven Final Expense Sales and Lead Generation System Used by Top Final Expense Agents Across the Country,” is now available on Amazon for Kindle and in paperback.

In this article Duford has shared a few excerpts from the book, which draws from his own experience successfully selling final expense and from his experience training hundreds of FE agents nationally. The 141-page book details a strategic system and tactics designed to develop top-producing final expense agents.

Here are the excerpts:

• The importance working with an experienced managing agent

“The advice of many final expense agents is to gravitate towards becoming an independent agent as quickly as possible if they want to sustain success for the long run. Much of the process of being overwhelmed can be managed if the agent works with a tenured and experienced managing agent. To lessen the burden of learning the final expense business, new independent agents are recommended to start with two or three core final expense companies, preferably that are easy to underwrite, simple to understand, and competitively priced. A good final expense manager upline will help you find those easy-to-work-with final expense carriers, but as you grow you will need the ability to pick up more carriers to fit specific underwriting niches.”

• Casting a wide net

“The real component to long-term success is continual, nonstop prospecting in large numbers. Seeing and talking to as many people as possible about final expense life insurance, and asking all those people to do business with will cause you to realize massive results.”

• Thoughts on final expense leads

“A lead is nothing more than an individual who raises his hand and expresses a marginal level of interest in whatever it is that you are soliciting. A lead is not a guaranteed sale. Most leads don’t throw their checkbook at you, ready to buy the moment you walk in. They need to be sold! They need somebody to convince them of what it is that they are interested in as something that they should buy. It is important to understand this difference because when you are buying leads, you are not buying guarantees; you are buying opportunities. It is up to you to make those leads worth working.”

• The most important skill to sell final expense

“Why is fact-finding and pre-qualifying critical to your success as a final expense agent? Because effective fact-finding and prequalifying literally gives the agent the ammo necessary to make the sale, and quickly and early-on establishes whether the person they are meeting with is a prospect (someone pre-qualified to buy final expense life insurance) or a suspect (someone who may have interest, but lacks in a critical component that makes the suspect incapable of buying today).”

The Rosenthal connection

Duford says he felt it is important for him to help Rosenthal, who because of the disease is not only facing significant physical challenges but financial ones as well.

“Mark has been a valuable, long-time member of Insurance Forums, and has always operated in a value-driven way by giving away, totally for free, great marketing and sales ideas to insurance agents,” Duford says. “Mark is going to need a lot of time to recover from his treatment, and to getting back to feeling normal again, so he’s going to need help financially to support his family while he recovers over the next few months. Donating the proceeds collected over the first 30 days of publishing my book is my way of doing what I can to support his cause and give back to someone who has always given first. I appreciate those that take time to purchase my book, as you are directly helping Mark and his family with your purchase.”

Rosenthal also spoke with Duford recently about his condition and the additional challenges it has brought.

“MS has affected me in many different ways. I can’t get hot or I go blind and won’t be able to move. It has taken most of the vision of my right eye. It gives me brain fog and loss of memory. I can only walk or stand for about 10 minutes at a time. It is like someone has tied 100-pound weights to both my ankles.” Rosenthal says. “I have restroom issues. I’m never hungry. I don’t sleep much. I have days that I can’t get out of bed. I always wake up dead tired. My whole immune system is messed up.”

Rosenthal says the long-term consequence of his progressive MS – without the HSCT treatment – is that he would be in a wheelchair full-time within two years and in a nursing home within 10.

But Rosenthal is strongly encouraged at the potential of the treatment to halt the disease’s progression, citing a 95% success rate for HSCT patients. Much more about his story and the HSCT treatment can be found at his website, www.savemarkrosenthal.com.

He also wanted to thank Duford for donating book proceeds for the first 30 days. “It is very kind and a good gesture,” Rosenthal said. “Every dollar will count.”