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This IS a loaded question, no doubt. What it is NOT is an open invitation for reps from the leads companies to pick up the phone and try to sell me old, previously sold, tired or otherwise ineligible leads. You know who you are...

It is an invitation for you to comment on the best ways to generate new personal lines leads. Not necessarily referrals because maybe we should save that for a separate discussion thread).

This is a question of how to generate unique and original leads from people that are shopping for insurance AND looking for the best price, best value, best company, best service....without resorting to buying leads. It's also a discussion about how to do this in a way that is 100% TRACKABLE so that an ROI can be calculated.

Lastly it should be affordable.

Your thoughts?

Well George Page, you could start by renaming your agency 'The FREE Insurance Agency'...that would get the phones ringing. You could change the business model and try branding the agency 'The All Night Insurance Agency' to pick up inquiries during the times when other insurance offices are closed. That might also work.

You've resurrected the age old question posed by personal lines retail agencies in the current selling era of just how the heck to you get the phone to ring when the old tried and true Yellow Pages, Direct Mail and signage don't work any more.

And you bring up the attributes of best price, value, service and company as if someone shopping for personal insurance is looking for the worst price, crappy service, upside down value and a company on the verge of bankruptcy. Gee George, isn't that what the 19 million search hits say and promise when the average consumer sits down at the keyboard and types 'low cost auto or home insurance' into the search line?

It's probably not just my opinion, but for the majority of personal lines and small commercial agencies, internet leads are a massive waste of time and money, and to date, short of coming up with a revived direct mail campaign or knocking on doors, or finding the true secret grail of internet search or the magic words in social media feeds from your agency, there's just no magic formula to bringing in new prospects.

No agency owner has, or is willing to share that 100% trackable, ROI computing formula to personal lines success. Accept it and move on and survive as best you can with referrals from current clients.

I had forgotten why I never post stuff for discussion here. My apologies...stupid question. BUT, I found my answer in the most unlikely of places. Not here, though.