Have You Considered Selling Your Agency?
Digital BGA is a growing BGA in the independent insurance space. I’ve spent many hours reviewing their program as well as speaking with some of the their top producing agents (one is on pace to personally write over $1M in annual premium this year). Here are my thoughts, take it for what it’s worth. 🙂
Digital BGA Review
30-Second Snapshot
Digital BGA provides a turnkey solution for independent agents looking to get started selling life insurance over the phone from the comfort of their own home.
Their focus is the following:
- Traditional Life Insurance
- Final Expense
The big takeaway from our review was that they eliminate friction in getting a high ROI (return on investment) on life insurance leads.
They do this by utilizing technology that keeps agents working in a highly efficient manner.
In turn, the tech, processes, coaching, and proprietary sales language has helped Digital BGA produce some of the most efficient telesales agents in the country.
Aside from the platform, Digital BGA was founded by by two successful life insurance agents, Jeff Root and Nic West, who are very hands on with training.
In addition to the tech and high-quality leads, they do not require non-competes and offer a free release to agents that opt to pursue other opportunities. This seemed to be one of the biggest perks as many agents seem to want an upfront release.
This is all in addition to top level carrier contracts.
Below is an overview of what we will cover in this review.
What You Need to Understand About Digital BGA:
About Digital BGA
They were initially launched in July of 2016 by Co-Founders Nic West and Jeff Root in Austin, TX. I have come across Jeff and Nic numerous times over the years and they have always been 2 long-standing and reputable life insurance experts.
Their model focuses primarily on high volume telesales business and currently is the leading BGA for life insurance telesales agents.
They continue to strive to integrate new technology, support, and consistently deploys unique marketing avenues to offer agents the best opportunity to truly “build your own telesales life insurance business.”
The same technology and efforts are utilized to ensure agents are always dialing the highest-quality leads possible which is one of the biggest barriers for agents selling over the phone.
Here’s how they do it.
The Digital BGA Value Proposition
After reviewing their program, the value proposition is very clear.
It surely lies within the technology utilized and offered to agents to truly remain efficient and writing business year-round. It’s very much a turn key opportunity.
Something I think we can all admit is a constant struggle in the life insurance industry.
It all begins on the front lines and their proprietary CRM that they have developed specifically for agents. There are numerous questions online about the best CRM for insurance and the most successful agents always seem to be using a proprietary build.
You can trust it comes loaded with the tools necessary to succeed in this business.
The Digital BGA CRM
The Digital BGA CRM is one of the best in the business for several reasons, and I have worked and reviewed SO many CRMs for the insurance industry.
First and foremost, it’s designed to be 100% efficient for life insurance agents to continually call new leads.
In fact, it does 99% of the work for you.
Here are some of the key features:
- Built in Dialer- All that’s needed to begin your day is to simply click “Begin Dialer” and the CRM will take over calling leads based on priority until you have a live prospect ready to conduct business over the phone.
- Pre-Qualification Links Sent to Leads- This Pre-Qualification survey takes your prospect one step further, allowing them to answer preliminary questions needed to complete a life insurance application. Currently, 8-12% of your total leads will complete this for you.
- Application Links Can Send Directly Out of the CRM- This feature allows your prospects to fully complete and apply with the carrier you select. It takes one click of the mouse to send this digitally to your prospects and only a few minutes for them to send back to you fully completed and ready for a case manager. For the prospects short on time or the ones who “need to think about”, this works excellent towards converting more sales and increasing overall ROI.
- Full Texting Abilities Inside of the CRM- You can have an easy conversation via SMS through the CRM, allowing you to connect with prospects using different avenues.
- 1-Click Quoting Feature- Once your lead is received in ‘REAL TIME,” you can click one button to begin the quoting process based on the information your lead has provided.
This saves substantial time and effort on the agent’s end.
In case we forgot to mention, the CRM with Digital BGA is 100% free to use as a contracted agent with the BGA.
Other Technology Offered with Digital BGA
In addition to the CRM, Digital BGA also offers LIP (Life Insurance Processing) for contracted term life insurance agents. This is the case management function that most wholesalers offer, except the case managers are solely focused on getting cases sold over the phone placed quickly.
This takes the processing and paperwork off your desk which is probably the biggest reason most agents selling over the phone fail. It can be easy to make the sales, the case management is where you’ll get buried.
Simply complete the easy application and submit your case to Digital BGA’s team of caseworkers to help you place your cases and move onto your next prospect quickly and efficiently.
Revenue is accomplished talking to new prospects and submitting new cases, not completing paperwork.
Digital BGA understands this and makes every effort to keep you doing only the revenue generating tasks
Digital BGA Sales Support
They offer a plethora of agent support.
Here’s a look at the support you would have access to:
- Slack Channel- You will have access to not only a sales coach in Digital BGA’s slack channel but also have access to all other agents dialing and writing business all hours of the day. This can help with getting fast answers from other agents about underwriting and even sophisticated case design. Community support is one of the biggest things agents ask for.
- Sell Term Life Community- The Sell Term Life Community is loaded with agents with experience. Having additional questions or needing new ideas about how to expand your telesales business is just one way you can benefit from being part of this exclusive community.
- Yearly Mastermind Live Events- Outside of digital communication, Digital BGA also host a yearly event where agents from around the country meet and share ideas on how to grow their business.
- This typically has speakers that are experts in various verticals such as the following:
- SEO
- Social Media Marketing
- Writing More Life Insurance Business
- Best Sales Practices
- Case Managers That Understand How to Place Business- Case managers take your business seriously with Digital BGA.
After submitting new business with a prospect, you can expect professionalism and quick turnaround times, getting your cases placed on the books with open communication throughout the process.
Cons of Working with Digital BGA
All of this sounds great, but what about the cons of working with Digital BGA?
I have reviewed hundreds of opportunities for independent agents and want to make sure to always provide a clear cut opinion to ensure you know enough before engaging a new opportunity.
Below are some of the potential cons:
- Highly selective. Digital BGA is highly specific on who they bring on and support in their model. If you’re trolling the internet for easy opportunities, you’ll be sadly mistaken with Digital BGA. For example, the only way to get started with the selection process is to attend a webinar and watch some videos ahead of time. Some may say this isn’t a con, but in reality, a lot of your reading this are looking for someone to just give you a contract so you can start working. Whether you like it or not, this doesn’t work that way.
- You can’t schedule an initial phone call. This goes back to the highly selective con listed above. The current model doesn’t allow you to call and talk to someone and forces you to go through their selection process first. To some this is an annoyance, to others it’s a sign of a good company growth strategy.
- You have to pay for your leads. I struggled with adding this as a con as it’s more a hurdle. Digital BGA has lead purchase requirements in order to work their system. Any good agent knows it takes leads to make sales, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. However, if you’re looking for a telesales opportunity with free leads, Digital BGA isn’t going to be that resource for you.
Conclusion
Overall, I recommend Digital BGA to any agent looking to exclusively sell life insurance over the phone from home.
All agents, whether your face to face or primarily telesales clearly, have hundreds of options to choose from when picking their BGA or upline.
While they only work with telesales agents, they are certainly a strong candidate and one of the best in the business and continue to show stable growth and innovation.
Support, technology, and training for the agents are critical, and that’s a clear priority with Digital BGA.
If you want to write more business and become more efficient in your telesales business, Digital BGA is worth your time to have a discussion with.
