May 2005

From The Desk Of Pat Wedeking

On April 21, 1995 my father died in the arms of his wife and two sons. About a month later my mother and I were driving through the Columbia River Gorge, a beautiful site in nature and a drive that always reminds me of my dad. As I had done many times that month, I began to relive his final few moments of life. It is a moment in time I will not forget. Our dad taught us a number of things and especially tried to emphasize a few, but it was in that last moment, that ending struggle, that he demonstrated for me his final lesson.

April 21^st was a beautiful spring day; Mike was down to Vancouver from Seattle for us to do some joint work and to help with dad as much as possible. I woke up a at my place, a couple of miles away from mom and dad’s and got ready to go to the gym as I usually did on a Friday morning. But that morning, for some reason, I decided not to go and, instead, went over to see how the family did through the night. When I got there I could tell immediately that it was rough – Mike and mom looked tired as I greeted them and I tried to give dad good morning hug, but there was too much pain. I laid down beside him on the bed and he turned to me and said “Why don’t I just go, and meet you at the pearly gates?” I said no because it was not time yet and he put his hand in fist, mustered up all the strength he could and whispered, “Okay, not yet.”

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MY Favorite Titles

Hello, my name is Tom Mosley. I have been in the insurance field for 10 years – with a five-year gap. In 1999, I took a position in sales with Electric Mobility Corporation in Sewell, New Jersey. Electric Mobility manufactures and sells the Rascal scooter that helps mobility-challenged people get around.

Starting out as a sales rep, I was promoted to area manager, regional manager, district manager, national trainer, and eventually Executive Vice President. This final position meant I flew across the country from my home in Southern California to New Jersey on Sunday night three times each month, spent four days there running the company each trip, and flew back late on Thursday night. This position brought prestige, income, experience, frequent flyer miles, and absolute misery! Don’t get me wrong - the business actually exploded and almost doubled the company in size. But, I had no business being in that business because it diverted my focus from my main business.

What are your important titles?

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Brad's Bits
OFG Goes.........National

A vacuum has been created in recent years within the life insurance industry. The decline of the career system [more than a 25% sales force drop over the past decade according to LIMRA] has forced more agents to leave the insurance industry or become independent. Why you ask and where’s the vacuum? Carriers no longer wish to be in distribution. The buyer of life insurance is no longer the customer in their view. Their customer today is the IMO—the Independent Marketing Organization. Carrier support and guidance is lent at this level. This shift to a “new” customer has left many agents without support—without a home—and hence the vacuum. Insurance Only and Only Financial Group have long been aware of this unfolding event and now move forward to capture a significant share of this “traditional” market place with the launch of OFGNational.

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Design Your Future
By Mark Meurer

The Internet has many facets and it has changed the way people think and do business. It is the greatest communication and information-sharing device known to humankind and it’s all in one location. The Internet is so powerful that a single person can build a multi-million dollar business from the keyboard of one computer!

As we all know, term insurance is a commodity. It’s a product driven by price and with very few moving parts. Simply put, it’s easy to sell. The challenge then is gathering information with ease, communicating effectively with your prospect, and then being able to swiftly offer a solid carrier product at competitive pricing. That’s what the Internet allows and that’s what we offer to interested agents here at Only Financial Group--technology with web-enabled tools.

What are the financial possibilities? Prior to the Internet it took a long time for a business owner to amass a billion dollars:

Henry Ford 23 years
Sam Walton 20 years
Bill Gates 12 years

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Greatest Hits Archive
To Meet the Guru
By Brad Howard

This Article Followed the Denver Summit in 2004 – Please be sure to attend October 6^th – 9th

It IS the correct analogy. OFG agents, staff and national vendors departed on Thursday September 30^th to converge on the “mountain top”, the mile high city of Denver, Colorado. There they visited the “gurus” of direct response selling. There they met the vendors and leaders reshaping the insurance industry. Who attended?

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LeadBoss Q&A

What Is LeadBoss?
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Q: How do I create an email template?

A: You create an email template by clicking on the “Create Email Template” button. This will take you to the “Event Email Creation” page. On this page you need to select the type of template you would like to create: Event Email, Event Reminder, or LeadBoss Email Template. NOTE: The LeadBoss Email Templates are those templates that you manually send to clients – these are NOT Event Emails.

Once you have decided which type of template you would like to create, you then need to name the template. It is important to be very clear when naming the template by including what status the template should apply to and some indication as to what is contained in the email or reminder. You now enter the text for the email or reminder. If you are adding text for an email, you should be more careful as to the content of the text. The 4th step in the process is to add the text. You simply type in the text as you would a regular email or reminder. If you would like to add field lists so that the emails or reminders are customized for that particular lead, you simply need to select the particular field that should be added to the email or reminder. You can choose to add fields that pull from the lead’s information or from the agent’s information. If an Event Email Template is setup with the first name field in place, this will prompt LeadBoss to “pull” this particular field or information from the lead thus customizing the email.

Once you have created the email template, you can click the “Preview Email Message” to determine how the template will look when sent. NOTE: when entering text for an EVENT EMAIL or LEADBOSS EMAIL, DO NOT enter a signature. The reason for this is LeadBoss will enter this information automatically based on which agent the lead is assigned to. You will want to enter a salutation (ex. “Sincerely,”) followed by a carriage return (space).

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Only Financial Group
Bellevue, Washington
1-866-INS-ONLY

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