Great Article by Chris Drake (CEO and founder of FireHost, Inc.,) at VentureBeat
“In business, “turning on the faucet” is a metaphor for flooding your market with the full spectrum of marketing and business development. It’s an important step in your company’s maturity. Take it too early and you’ll misrepresent your service. Take it too late, though, and you’ve missed the boat. My entrepreneurial “a-ha moment” came when I was running TargetScope, an interactive marketing and web development company. We were successful, but then the website of one of our biggest clients (a very large, very well known turkey company) was hacked … the day before Thanksgiving 2007…” Read the Entire Article at Entrepreneur.Venturebeat.com
Not has young as we used to be and can’t call ourselves twentysomethings, our mindset is the same with Radius
Entrepreneur.com Article
“Here’s how four ultra-successful twentysomethings leveraged their brilliant ideas into major businesses online. And how you can, too…”
Radius just launched our Expanded Commissions & Renewals Calculations by Product within Radiusbob.com. After launching Live June 1st, a number of Radius Agents had asked us to expand upon the way Radius calculates Commissions & Renewals and did we ever. Now when creating a product within Radius you have four options on how to set up your Commission Structure by Product
1. Flat Fee Commission
2. Variable Percentage of Premium
3. Standard Percentage of Premium
4. Commissionable Premium
At launch, Radius was only calculating ‘Flat Fee Commissions & Renewals’, but no matter what line of business you sell, Life, Health, Final Expense, Annuities, Property & Casual or Supplemental, you can create endless products with various commission structures within Radius. But we think the best part is the ‘Override’ feature that will allow you to modify the Commission & Renewal at the Lead and Client Level. After creating the product, if you want to use a ‘Default Premium’ for your products you can and if a special circumstance comes up, then you can modify it at the Lead or Client level which will only be specific to that Lead or Client.
Flat Fee Commission
Example: You sell MedicareAdvantage and are always paid $300 Per Application and $200 Per Renewal.
Commission = $300
Renewal = $200
Variable Percentage of Premium
Use this if your Commission and Renewal Percentage of Premium are ‘Consistent’, but the Premium Varies by Lead and Client.
Example:You sell Life & Health products that pay 10% Commission of Premium and 8% on Renewal
Premium = $400 / Month
Commission = 10% / Month (Radius displays a Potential Commission of $480)
Renewal = 8% / Month (Radius displays a Potential Renewal of $384)
We built in the ‘Default Premium’ which is used how the ‘Standard Premium’ on the product. But as we know, once a beneficiary has completed the application, the premium can change based upon age, gender, health, etc. So at the Lead and Client Level, we gave Radius user the ability to change the Premium which Radius Auto Calculates a new Commission & Renewal total. Very Cool.
Standard Percentage of Premium
Example:You sell Medicare Supplement Plans and while the Premiums are consistent by Plan Name, the Commissions and Renewals have Tier Years Built into payout structure.
Plan F Premium = $153 / Month
Commission = 10% Years 1-3 (Radius displays a Potential Commission of $183.60)
Renewal = 8% Years 4-6 (Radius displays a Potential Renewal of $146.88)
Commissionable Premiums
Example: You sell Property & Casual and for each policy there is a Premium and a Commissionable Premium and you are paid on the Commissionable Premium
Policy Premium = $200 / Month
Commissionable Premium = $150
% of Premium = %8 (Radius displays Potential Commission of $144)
% of Renewal = %6 (Radius displays Potential Renewal of $108)
As you can see, we have taking our time, heard feedback from a number of agents through out the process. We actually got to about 75% completion and went back to the drawing board to incorporate even more feedback into our final solution. Thank you to everyone whom helped us get to this point, both internal and external folks, this is ground breaking because there is NOTHING like this being offered to Insurance Agents within in a Lead Management + CRM Software.
We came across this and thought we should spread the message while agents spread the message to their books of business:
From the Geico Website
It has come to our attention that some individuals in the United States have received letters indicating that they could be paid to participate in a customer service or mystery shopper evaluation. Others have received letters indicating that they have won a sweepstakes drawing. These letters may contain “checks” that appear to be from “GEICO Direct” or “GEICO Financials, a division of GEICO Indemnity Insurance Company .” Please be advised that:
- GEICO IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY CUSTOMER SERVICE EVALUATION, SWEEPSTAKES OR LOTTERY OF THIS TYPE.
- GEICO HAS NOT ISSUED ANY CHECKS OF THIS NATURE.
- NEITHER GEICO NOR THE BANK NAMED ON THE CHECK WILL HONOR THE CHECK.
If you have received a letter of this nature, you should be aware that these are fraudulent. You should notify your local postal inspector or other law enforcement. If you still have a copy of the check we would appreciate you providing all the information listed on the check. You may also send envelope, letter and enclosed check to:
One GEICO Plaza
Attn: Internal Audit – Carol Widman
Washington, DC 20076
This will be helpful for law enforcement.
If you have any additional questions, please contact us at 301-986-3623.
For more information on these types of scams, you may visit the websites listed below:
- http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt014.shtm
- http://www.fakechecks.org/
- http://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/
Not really digging the Custom Form Fields Admin Area. Think it is a bit cumbersome and needs not only better styling (font size is to big), it needs to be user friendly and some of the verbiage needs to change to be more intuitive….Rolled out the font and verbiage changes. Working on the UI, going to paginate by Coverage Type. Each tab will be a Coverage Type which will help Radius Agents get to the point faster.
Have you noticed the New Ad Campaigns from Esurance (new brand identity as well) and Allstate? Esurance is going for a more grown up feel while Allstate is injecting some humor into their advertising. Looking from the outside in, one could almost say that both Esurance and Allstate are going after each others current demographic. Esurance redefines it’s brand and advertising, stepping away from it’s long associated cartoon character ‘Erin Esurance” (who knew she had a name) and molding into what we would say is a more traditional brand identity and ad campaign. Esurance is focusing on the customer service side with what one could classify as ‘creepy’ spots. The humor they are trying to inject is a bad version of ‘The Office’, it just doesn’t seem to work. But that being said, we can tell they are trying to go after an older demographic, well at least older then the twenty something college student having to pay for car insurance for the first time (I should know as that was me, and still is. The Esurance customer part, not twenty something college student).
On the other hand, Allstate is injecting some very dark humor (which we have to say is brilliant) with their ‘Mayhem’ campaign. The jest is basically a character actor is playing ‘Mayhem’ whether it be a new puppy tearing up the back seat in your car, a guy who keys cars, lighting that strikes a tree which falls on to your house, you get the point. Some might consider this a scare tactic, which it is, but it does come across in a harmless way. The dark humor spots seem to suggest that Allstate is going away from or in addition to it’s usual talking head approach, targeted towards a younger demographic whom sees the humor, not the obligatory scare tactic.
Either way, we see this as an evolution of the two brands geared towards grabbing market share. Market share presumable from Flo (Progressive) and Gecko (Geico)…
Today we rolled out a nice little feature that has more then just a cool factor, it makes Radius even easier to use. The Radius InfoTip (yes, in our business they call them ToolTips, but this isn’t a tool) displays the important Lead and Client information once you hover over a Lead or Client Icon on the Dashboard, Lead List and Client List. Now Radius users don’t even have to click to find a Lead’s phone number, cell number, address or coverage information. This is inline with our approach of ‘make it better, not bigger’. Enjoy.
Side Note: For those whom are San Fransisco 49ers fans, Ronnie Lott’s info above is fake, please don’t call asking for Ronnie (now Roger Craig’s info is a different story)
It is the little things that drive quality. Thinking about a laptop’s power source and giving it great design and functionality, makes it just that much better.
When we, Radius, use a service or product, we base are decision, not on price, but on value. And that values stems from two things; what we are receiving for our spend, and how we are perceived by our suppliers. Let’s take our hosting partner for example (SliceHost.com), their value to us and why we spend our money with them is that we find their customer service in an industry that is not known for customer service, to be above and beyond anyone else we have ever dealt with (and we have hosted hundreds of sites for the past 12 years). They built a custom chat room application that is staffed around the clock and usually has a minimum of two techs interacting with multiple people (we want it) answering any type of question presented while others are watching, reading and asking their own questions. Including the great hosting they provide as it pertains to hardware, bandwidth, up time and all other things web host, there customer service is what we buy on and this is what we are doing with Radius. While we are customer service centric, all we need to start with are the basics and we are three steps ahead of our competitors (whom ever they may be).
Time and time we read and hear about agents interactions with a variety of vendors in our industry whom don’t really care about customer service. Of course the interaction when agents are trying to be sold is great, but once they have signed up on the dotted line, no one cares. To us that is astonishing, as we know the value of retaining a customer is cheaper and has better ROI then acquiring a new one. Let’s put this into perspective, a happy customer who speaks highly about a product, begets other prospective customers with their enthusiasm and gracious words about a product or services which marketing and advertising can’t recreate. As Insurance Agents know, a client referral is not only the cheapest lead, but the highest conversion and that is how everyone should look at it.
‘Price is what you pay, Value is what you get’ – Warren Buffett
