Effective & Compliant Medicare Lead Generation with Professor Leads | Insurance 360 Ep. 26

Welcome the masters behind the mic, guiding us through the galaxy of lead generation to bring balance to your business. Get ready for a game-changing conversation as Bill DeCourcey joins Bob and Rob to unpack how technology is revolutionizing the Medicare world. From smarter lead generation to powerful compliance tools, we’re breaking down the tech trends transforming how insurance agents grow, serve, and succeed.

May the Leads be with you!

Transcript

All right. Good morning everybody. Welcome to another episode, of Insurance 360,

cranking 'em out.

You know what today is Rob? May 1st. 

Ah, May the--

May 1st.

I was gonna say "May the Fourth be with you," but we got a couple days for that. 

It's a new month. Can't believe it's May. 

Yeah, we're almost in certification season.

Yeah. That's my stop, 

stop. I ain't even talking to certifications. You should see, you should see my 

schedule during certification season. It is, uh, it's not, it's not a fun schedule. 

Yeah, I know. And a lot of, a lot of assistance with the training, you know, the, the carrier trainings, the AHIP trainings, everything else that's, uh, going on.

Um, but today we're talking about what's going on, let's call it the rest of the year, because there's certainly a lot of changes every year. We know that. It seems like every time the final rule comes out, we've got 20 different things we've gotta learn, change, distribute out to the, to the agents, making sure they're doing it right.

Um, this year is no different. And then you got the new administration coming in, which I. They're, I guess they're sort of kicking some of this stuff out from the final rule. I, I don't know. It's gotta moving parts. Hopefully, hopefully 

it kicks some stuff out. Yeah, right. We got, got 

Dr. Oz, you know, I love saying Dr.

Oz. Dr. Oz is, is, is in now, he's officially in and um. Today we've got another, uh, another really great guest for this time of year. I mean, he's got a cool nickname. Yeah. We've got with us professor leads from Lead Star, the, the, the creator of Lead Star. So. So Bill, welcome to, uh, the show, man. Appreciate you jumping on with us, 

Bob and Rob.

It's my pleasure. Thank you very much for the invitation. 

Yeah, I mean, I mean, listen, you, you're in the same boat. We are, I mean, a lot with all the changes that are going on, and you're trying to stay up on it just like we are making sure that the agents, I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, we're making sure the agents are trying to do everything right.

I mean, I mean, I know sometimes it doesn't feel like, you know, CMS recognizes we are trying to do everything right, but we are trying to do everything right and compliant. And Bill, I, I know you're, you're jumping through all those hoops just like we are. 

You know, absolutely. One of my favorite sayings, and I believe this in, you know, deep in my heart, is that compliant business is good business.

It doesn't just keep us out of trouble. It enhances consumer trust. And when you're an agent that is the most valuable part of the relationship, individuals beneficiaries trusting you to help them make the best decisions, uh, at a time when they're presented with. A a, just an almost overwhelming amount of con of confusing information that trust is important.

When we talk about lead generation, we want to start that trusted relationship with our very first interaction with them, which in a lot of cases is an ad unit or a piece of direct mail. 

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There's, and there's so much going on right now. I know, Rob. I mean, we get how many different solicitations for different lead generation models out there.

Oh yeah. Different programs. Every message 

I get on LinkedIn is a new lead program. New lead, lead guy. New. New, yeah. AI driven. You wanna throw all the buzzwords out there. They're all there. Especially in the lead world too. Right. I think everyone I get right now starts with ai. 

Absolutely. And, and, and, and you know, that's the current hook.

Before it was, you know, when we transitioned from data leads to calls, it was, we have the best calls, the highest intent calls, and, and you, you know, you learn to filter for those keywords. I'm just like you, I get dozens of solicitations. Every single day. The great thing is now, you know, half a decade into my career at AmeriLife and with Lead Star, you get to know the individuals in the business.

And through outreach and collaboration and industry work, you can, you, you really get to know by reputation who's doing it right and who isn't doing it right. And that's one of the things I like to provide most, not just platforms like Lead Star or you know, individual leads for individual agents and agencies.

But also that perspective on who's doing it right and who's been bouncing between different agencies, changing their name, changing their company, you know, reincorporating to stay ahead of the compliance curve because they're not doing it right. We, we do have that information and we can help agents and agencies be that filter.

It says, Hey, is there anything here? And we can also surface opportunities for those that are genuinely doing stuff in an innovative way. 

Yeah, no, it makes, it makes a lot of sense. And obviously there's a lot of. Evolution in, in our space going on right now. I mean, it's, it's going a million miles an hour with, with all the changes.

And, and one of the things that we just pride ourselves on and we always have, is making sure that things are being done above board the right way. I mean, nobody wants to get in trouble for, for something, not realizing it. So it's, it's really a value add. I mean, as an agency here, our organization has just always been, um.

You know, that compliant level of compliance, making sure that the agents are doing things right and, and that's why we really like the Lead Star program and how you guys are doing things because we know for us it's an extra level of protection. We know, we know it's a compliant program and, and you guys have some really good stuff going on right now, which is just given solid results.

The ROI is great and plus it's compliant. I mean, bill, I mean you, I know you're probably juggling both of those things every day. You know, it's gotta be, you know, something that works, but it also has to be something that's compliant. 

Absolutely. And here, you know, at AmeriLife at Lead Star, uh, we appreciate very much what Pinnacle does to focus on that compliance while balancing performance type of perspective.

Um, our chief compliance officer here at AmeriLife likes to say that compliance is everybody's job. And we take that very, I. Seriously at at Lead Star? I would say if you looked at myself and my team's time, we spend uh, uh, you know, about 40% of our time on performance optimization and about 40% of our time on compliance.

Those are the two big rocks that we work on every single day because we do, in our value proposition guarantee that all leads are vetted for full TCPA and CMS compliance, which is absolutely critical for Medicare sales. And it used to be. Before some of the most recent three and four letter agency regulations that TCPA compliance and CMS compliance met the same thing.

But now that's not the case. CMS Medicare Advantage leads are actually much more tightly regulated compared to leads for other types of consumer services. So if you're selling MedSup, if you're selling final, uh, final expense, if you're selling ACA, there's a set of rules there that are set. By the FCC in terms of how you can reach out to people.

But there's a very, there's a tighter set of rules that apply to CMS. So that was one of the things we had to do when those rules came into effect, is make sure that all of our CMS leads had the non-data sharing component that was critical to not this year's set of changes, but the previous year's sets of changes.

Yeah, 

no, it, it's huge. And I, I mean, as we go into this year, I mean, one of the, the big changes we, you, you mentioned Medicare Advantage, I mean, for us, has been the, the SAP stuff, right? So, I mean, when we look at, well, the way agents used to go and get leads and whether they were, you know. Some kind of direct mail, whether they were direct call in leads, appointment setting.

I mean, there was a lot of opportunity month over month to make sales and, and there has been a lot of changes in that. So, you know what, what is Lead Start doing right now? I mean, if you have agents that are saying, Hey, set me appointments, or We want those direct inbound leads, I mean, there is another.

Another thing to consider where they might not have a opportunity to enroll those people today. I mean, it might be a EP before they can enroll somebody. 

That's right. It, and it's changed dramatically. And I'll, I'll, I'll tell you what our solution is before I get into the details of how the solution is implemented.

But the solution is when we pre-qualify the leads before they get to the agents, we explore the new. Highly integrated and fully integrated, um, plans that are appropriate for new DSNP opportunities to make sure that those people are actually eligible during ROI, so that you're not talking to somebody who may be valuable, like you said in a EP, but you can't really help today.

Um, so, you know, you mentioned like how things are evolving. Um, the dual, dual eligible SNPs have been. An absolute goldmine for year-round leads. But the regulations have changed and the new SEP rules are now favoring these highly integrated and fully integrated plans. Um, and, and we think, and we've seen that fewer standalone d SNPs are gonna be available.

So we are encouraging agents to adopt by focusing on those plans that are highly integrated and fully integrated dual s snip plans and. You know, we are making sure that the people we talk to are eligible for and in the areas that are required for those type of plans. 

Yeah. And, and is it, if as if we didn't have enough acronyms in the Medicare world, what do we got now?

A couple new ones. Heidi. Heidi, I mean in with 

QB plus, slimy, I mean, you name it, it's probably an actor, Heidi. 

I feel like I just mastered D SNP and c snp and then all of a sudden Heidi and FI are coming in, you know, these, these highly integrated and fully integrated, uh, plants and, and yes, I mean it's, it's a full-time job just understanding these, these terms and another full-time job to make sure that your agents are understanding that and another full-time job to understand, make sure that people who are generating leads on our behalf.

Understand what the opportunity is here. And I have to give a shout out actually to our data and analytics team here at AmeriLife because what they've been able to do working collaboratively is we've looked at some of the highest impact areas and we've identified opportunity areas there, and we've presented that information to the people who are actually out there on our behalf doing ad placements and sending direct mail to generate inbound phone calls to generate data leads so that they're not just spamming the entire country, hoping that they'll, you know, get an occasional.

Bite here and there. Um, you know, I'm a pretty avid fisherman living down here in Florida. We've got the fish finder turned on right. And we're, we're finding we're not dropping our line unless there's a school right underneath the boat. 

Yeah, no, no, it makes sense. And it, there, it, it is a lot more moving parts than ever before.

And, um. Rob and his team as part of part of my team actually, we created a website for Heidi and fight, and we've got every plan out there pretty much. Right That, yeah, because not every state even is offering Heidi and fight's right now, if you're doing business in the state of Connecticut, for example.

You don't have a Heidi and Fighty opportunity. I mean, it's just not there. I know you've been doing trainings on the, on our separate website for that. I mean, just trying to make sure the agents know how that all works and where they can actually do SEP business this way. 

There's a lot of confusion and it's, it's, I mean, unfortunately, I feel like this is, this type of learning curve is similar to C-S-N-D-S-N.

But I honestly think it's a little bit more confusing, you know, because you just have so many moving parts, and I think the, the infrastructure still isn't set up across the country, so that makes it even more difficult. 

Yeah, this is true. So Bill, I mean, have you. Go Heidi Fight. Let's just throw another acronym out there.

C snp, right? So everybody had, I think finally learned dsnp and we've been doing that for years. So it, for us, it's almost as if, as if we're calling CS np, the new Dsnp, because where there is a CS NA chronic plan available, you've got an SEP. For those individuals. So are you guys taking a look at all at where the cips are available and, and sort of integrating that into what the, you're doing as far as marketing for, for the agents out there as well?

Yeah. It's a huge focus of ours and it's a real opportunity for us to help people with these chronic. Uh, with these chronic conditions. You know, we mentioned at the, you know, during the introduction that so much was happening with this new administration and, and one of the things that I'm personally very happy about is there seems to be a focus on.

Chronic disease and its causes in the United States. Now, we're not gonna be able to solve that here in, in, in the next couple of years, but at least we're looking at some of those causes. But the result of the chronic disease epidemic in the United States has been just literally millions of people who are eligible for plans like your agents provide with diabetes, with heart disease, with kidney problems, things of that nature.

So what do you do and what are we doing to generate leads to educate these people? Um, when, you know, obviously you, you talked about the opportunity here. One of the things we're doing is going heavy into educational materials, letting people who have these conditions, especially those people who are newly diagnosed.

Understand that there are resources out there to help them so they can learn more about their condition, and they can also learn more about plans that are gonna help them manage those conditions beyond what Lead Star is doing. In my advisory role here at AmeriLife, I'm also encouraging agents who are less comfortable with telephone leads and more comfortable with in-person engagements to use community events, provider referral or referrals and things of that nature to get to people.

Lead Star provides. Commoditized leads on demand that are absolutely compliance guaranteed. But not all agents necessarily want to work on the telephone all day. There's a lot of agents who really find fulfillment in going out into the field. And the CSNP opportunity gives you an opportunity to do that as well.

If you can get out into your community with provider referrals and be able to find those, those prospects. Um, and, and by the way, if you are interested in doing your own marketing, um. The social media tools out there do allow you, while not to drill out on specific health conditions, to drill down on related, uh, on, on related and correlated demographic and identification criteria that allow you to see who's likely to have something like diabetes, for example, if you could.

Pick out somebody who's 67 years old and recently has searched for ozempic online, that's probably a pretty good indicator that that person might be in, in a, in an, uh, uh, in a spot where a CSNP would be appropriate for them. So it's, we're applying that intelligence and advising others to apply that intelligence to get in front of the beneficiaries and prospects that really need our help.

Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense. And for everybody out there, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fill Rob's calendar if you need CSNP training, send my way. Rob Valencia at Pinnacle does an amazing job at CSN training. If you're not already getting yourself selling CS snips out there, you're, you're missing a huge opportunity, um, just in general because.

These, these conditions. Um, you know, it's sad to say, I mean, I know, I know there's a lot of conversation around getting people healthier, you know, make America healthy again. I mean, I think I've heard that slogan, but the, the reality is, is that a lot of individuals have these conditions, whether it's diabetes or high blood pressure, whatever it may be.

So there's a ton of opportunities out there. Call Rob, 

call me. We should have this flash on the screen as we're doing like one of those old eighties infomercials, you know, 

eighties, like, you know, blurb right there. Uh, better, better call Rob. 

Whether it's diabetes or high blood pressure, whatever it may be.

There's a ton of opportunities out there. Paul Rob call me. 

So, and, and I would also, I would also, if, if you've had an opportunity to see any of my content that I've been putting out on LinkedIn in terms of professor leads, I focus a lot on personal brand building, right? This is an awesome opportunity once you've been educated by Rob and you see the size of the opportunity for you to be putting content out there.

As an agent or as agency owner talking about, you know, myth busting videos. You can talk about the, the information that people need to know on this critical topic. 'cause again, let's put ourselves in, in the position of our beneficiaries when they, when they're dealing with something like a chronic condition, they're out there on the internet, most likely looking for information on how to manage that condition, right?

You can be that resource. You're not a physician. But you are the person who can get them in front of the right physician and you can provide that kind of content for them. That's an incredible credibility, uh, building exercise. And as we all know, credibility is one of the tenets of being a strong brand, strong brands and gender trust.

Trust engenders the kind of relationship you want to have with your beneficiaries and makes you the most valuable agent for that person. Helps build your book of business, helps retain your book, your book of business. 

Yeah, a absolutely. Absolutely. And, and. When we talk, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't go into at least a little bit what we're seeing agents use that, that are successful these days.

And, and I know with, as much as we're using the lead star programs, I mean we're seeing a lot of the agents use really two different things. It's the preset appointments, which you guys are doing for the agents and then the direct inbound leads. So can, can we talk a little bit about each of the programs and how they work?

So. For the appointment setting, for example. Right. It's pretty much, I mean, I, I should, I, I can't just say, you know, show up and, but you're pretty much setting, setting an appointment for them. Right. 

It's very turnkey. So I'll start at the beginning of Lead Star. One of the weaknesses that we identified with the first version of Lead Star that launched three and a half years ago is that it was really only focused on one particular type of behavior and persona within the agent community, and that was somebody who was very comfortable selling on the phone.

We'll talk about that here in a moment, because selling over the phone. Is absolutely a successful way to, to increase your book of business and to have a very, very successful, not just a EP, but also, um, open enrollment and rest of your period. Absolutely it works, but it's not for everybody. And what we heard people say is, I do my best work when I sit in front of a beneficiary, can do a true discovery session with them, get to know them a little bit, maybe see who else in their household needs some help build that local relationship.

And be there when they need me and ultimately get them into the right mix of plans that are gonna help them. Lead Star didn't accommodate that. So we started thinking creatively with people like you, Bob, and, and the team at PSM. We talked to other people in the business and said, our distribution partners at Merri Life, and said, what is it gonna take?

And we developed this appointments product. Our appointments product is very turnkey. You sign up. You, uh, you give your availability via a scheduling integration into your calendar so it can see where you're, where you're busy and where, and, and when you're free, um, you dis you, you distinguish which days you want to, uh, you, you want to hold appointments on you, uh, uh, give the distance that you want to go to attend an appointment.

Uh, you fund your account and then we handle the rest. We make outreach to the beneficiary, or we receive outreach from the beneficiary, somebody who is interested, we think in the services and products that you're selling. Then we go through a prequalification process to determine whether or not the interest is genuine.

And the culmination of that process is a question where we say, would you like to speak with an agent either now over the phone? Or in person. If somebody says in person, we say, great. What we're gonna do is we're gonna go through something that's called the scope of appointment. The scope of appointment is the legal designation of this person that you're going to be meeting with as your agent for these services.

We get them to go through, we get them to go through that process. We find that they have a tremendous commitment and tremendous intent. To work with an agent locally, it's only at that point that the, that the, the, the agent is, is assigned to the appointment. So there's a ton of prequalification that goes on on the backside.

Everything from age verification, um, chronic condition or DSNP eligibility. I. Geographical eligibility, um, making sure the person is close to the agent who wants the appointment, and then all the way through the scope of appointment, which is then gathered 48 hours in advance of the appointment, which as we all know, is a rule from two years ago that we all have to accommodate.

Once that appointment is set, you have to show up and you have to be your best self, but those appointments are closing at more than a 40% rate. At, on the first appointment, and another 30% of them are in a status of follow up. Generally, we see that, that more than half of those close, so when you're talking about an appointment that costs $90, you've got CPAs that are very, very, uh, very, very favorable.

By the way, when I talk about CPA, that's just a fancy marketing tool of how much do you spend to bring a beneficiary into your book of business. Right now it's about 240 or $230 for those appointments for you to bring somebody in. And you've got an advantage because you've nurtured a relationship with them.

So when it comes time for renewals, you can reach out to them. They'll remember you, you'll remember them. You can go ahead and just ma, you don't have to pay for that lead over and over again. They're just part of your book. It's a, it's a great program. And if I, I know I'm rambling a little bit, but if I could say one more thing that, because there are other people out there that are providing in-person Medicare appointments.

We did a strengths and weaknesses analysis of all our competitors before we got into this business. 'cause ultimately, we're not in this business because we want to make money. We're in this business because we want to make sales. So we said, what's preventing these agents from making sales and what's frustrating them in the process?

And what we found the number one complaint amongst our competitors doing appointments was customer service. The inability for the, for people who not associated with a particular FMO or IMO or agency like yourself to be able to resolve problems. We have a team that's here that reports into AmeriLife directly, has a direct line of sight into Bob and your leadership team at Pinnacle that.

When there's a problem, we work to resolve it and we favor the agent when we resolve that. We're very, very, I don't wanna use the word generous, um, but we're very understanding of things when other companies may not be. And our customer satisfaction scores are, you know, are very, very high when it comes to the appointments product.

Yeah. No, that's huge. And, and what you're saying is, is really what we're seeing. I mean, the closing ratios, um, just for our agents in the program is, like you said, over 40%, which is, which is great. I mean, you're, you're, these people are scoped and they're ready to go. I mean, that's, that's huge. And that's not even talking about some of the stuff we talk about, I feel like ad nauseum, which is cross-selling opportunities and, and other stuff that they should be doing, um, on their, on their appointments anyway, so, I mean, these are working out.

I. Really well on the, on the appointment setting side of things. They're really straightforward. Like you mentioned, there's a calendar you put your schedule in, Hey, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, this is when I'm available. Um, so they're not getting appointments off schedule, which, which works out really well.

Um, so we've seen really good success with these at this point. 

And, and I wanna just, I wanna say this is not meant to be a compliment for the sake of a compliment. I want to talk about this as a compliment in terms of an actual impact on performance. One of the reasons why you are converting those, your agents.

And, and, and the agencies you work with are converting those at such a high rate is because of the training that Rob provides, because of the contracting services that make sure that there's no breakage in that process that your team provides. But I think the most important thing that you've done recently is the introduction of the Boss tool, because that tool gives agents a.

Purpose built way to organize their book. And that makes a difference when it comes to the follow up. Uh, and, and the other steps necessary to make the close. Um, I've talked, I've had plenty of testimonials from agents who are using the system that Pinnacle provides, from what I understand at no cost, your agents, um, to, uh, that, that have used that to, to boost their conversion rates.

And not to mention save them a whole heck of a lot of time. 

Yeah, I mean, I mean, we see it all the time. And, and I'll just throw Rob out there again because Rob I think just does about 15 trainings a day on different days. I think I do them in my sleep at this point. 

Uh, 

but the boss trainings are a big part of what we do.

We have standing ones that we do every single week and then the, the one offs that we're always doing. But to your point, you've gotta be organizing. You've gotta have these. These management systems in place and one of the really the value. As we do, as, as a company, is to give these type of programs to the agents to use them.

Um, and really we don't, we don't charge for them, right? That's just our value prop for our agents and agencies, and it's been working out really well. Um. There's two parts of it. There's the portal, which has got all the content in there, you know, with the contracting and everything. And then you've got, um, the CRM part that you were mentioning where you load the leads in there and you can track them and disposition 'em and X state them for, for follow ups and whatnot.

And it's just, you know, huge to have those automated touches. You know, that's where we talk about the AI a little bit, which is really transforming our, our business. Oh, yeah. You're, I mean, what, how many trainings are you doing right now? 

I've done probably 20 this week. And that's not even counting some of the one offs, but I mean, at the end of the day, I think it's, we are, we are transitioning, I think from the agent base being, you know, 60 plus.

Mm-hmm. To starting to hit that 30 to 40 plus. And, and that age range has fully embraced technology. So it's, you know, in doing these tech, these, uh, trainings. We're also trying to help those people who haven't necessarily fully embraced it, but we are seeing the adoption rate skyrocket. I mean, people are using it and it's helping and they're, they're seeing that, you know, like firsthand, which I think really does help.

Yeah, I, 

yeah, absolutely. You, well, you mentioned, and, and you mentioned the, and if it could just, just for this, 'cause this is a passion point for me. You mentioned the age of the agent, right? One of the things we've talked about here is. What is our, what is our agent succession planning going to look like?

Because a lot of agents are nearing the age where they're gonna want to take advantage of a retirement, right? And so what are we gonna do to backfill for that? I happen to have three kids, um, all three of which are in that transition period between high school and what will eventually become their career.

Two of them are in college, and one of them, um, is, is considering going into the trades. I feel a lot better about my son who's considering going into the trades in terms of his ability to, you know, take all the economic ups and downs that are likely to come over his lifetime than I do about the two other kids.

College is expensive. You go into debt, you know, there's, you know, you're, you're not guaranteed anything. You know, my kid becomes my, my kid's. A kid, kid becomes a plumber. People are still gonna need to brush your teeth and and flush your toilet in the morning. Right? I feel the same way. About insurance. I think that one of the things that we could lock arms and do is talk to kids in the same way that people talk to them now about, well, maybe you wanna go to college and become an engineer.

Maybe you wanna go to college and become a teacher. Maybe you wanna go to school and you wanna learn. Learn to weld and and build submarines. Maybe what we should be doing is talking to intelligent young people who want to come out and change the world and help the world and be able to support a family about the opportunities that are available here.

And, and, and, and the, the frictionless way that we can do that using tools like Boss, using tools like Lead Star, just to give people a kit to get going, plus the resources you're providing. I, I think that it's, I think it's a terrific, honorable career and you can be extremely successful financially doing it.

Yeah, I, no, a hundred percent. It makes, makes sense. And I've got a second one gonna be starting college next year, so I feel, I feel your pain there, bill. I, I, I get it. It's, it's, uh, it's, it's quite a interesting, uh. Journey there when your kids are in college. But, uh, it keeps us working, man. We just keep, we keep, we keep grinding.

That's right. So the grind is very real. 

Yeah. Hey, and there is one other thing I think that I really feel like, is it, it, it kind of gets said but doesn't get said. We want to talk about those direct two, there's maybe two parts to this. The direct. Inbound leads versus what used to be the warm transfers.

And then we also get a lot of calls that agents are still using overseas agencies for those direct leads. So I, I know there's a, there's a lot in that, but you can take a, take a minute or two and sort of unpack what you, what you're seeing with the direct inbound leads and, and sort of what we, what should be the best practices for agents using 

them.

Yeah, so I, I wanna caveat what I'm about to say by, by telling you that I don't have a law degree on a hanging back here. I have comic books hanging back here, so I'm not a lawyer. And everybody should always rely first and foremost on the compliance officer or the legal resources within their company when making these final decisions.

But here's what I've seen, especially in the Medicare space. There is a recently implemented rule that prohibits. Data sharing between T PMOs, another four letter acronym. Lemme tell you what A-T-P-M-O is for people who have heard it, but maybe not understand what it is. It's a third party marketing organization and under the current definition of CMS, A third party marketing organization is anybody who's involved in the chain of enrollment from beginning to end with the exception of the carrier.

And the beneficiary. So anybody else who's involved in that, whether or not it's an FMO, an IMO, an agent, a lead provider, a service like a me life, um, pinnacle. We are all T PMOs and so the prohibition is. That you're not allowed to, without the beneficiary's permission, share their information between entities and when the information is shared, it needs to be shared directly to the agent who's going to be working on behalf of that person.

We had thought when this rule first came out, that it would be that the TPMO to TPMO prohibition would allow, would allow one TPMO. Let's say a lead generator to give with permission information to Pinnacle and anybody working under the Pinnacle umbrella would be covered by that permission. And we found out very late in the game a couple of years ago that that wasn't the case.

That it actually had to go directly to the agent. As you might imagine, that broke the generation. Of data leads at scale, because there was really no good mechanism by which an independent agent who was maybe buying five to 10 leads a day could find themselves at the top of the funnel, inserting their name into those data leads, and making sure that the permission from the TPMO generating the leads directly referenced that agent.

So that system was severed and it was unexpected. Now. Lead Star is working on a fix. I can commit to you that by the end of by, by the start of a EP this year, we will have a mechanism by where we will take demand in lead star, the exact agent that's asking for a lead, and we will be working with the Giants at the top of the funnel to get their name populated if they wanna lead, that's coming.

But in the meantime, what has happened? Is inbound calls have become the coin of the realm. An inbound call is, is, uh, uh, exempt in a lot of ways from these rules because there is no sharing of information. It's a call that's going directly from the beneficiary to the, to, to the agent, or in some cases it's facilitated by a.

Third party, but the information exchange isn't there because the information is gonna be provided directly from the beneficiary to the agent once they've made that connection. So that's become the preferred way of people doing business. Now, whether or not I can comment on specific use cases that involve.

Overseas call centers and things of that nature, all of them are structured differently. So the key advice that I would give to people is, well, first of all, in the same way that you offered, people should reach out to Rob. People should absolutely reach out to me and when we publish this, you know, please put my contact information in there so they can reach out to me with specific cases I may have experience with certain entities and be able to say, which using overseas entities are doing it the right way and which aren't.

But if there is a transfer of beneficiary information without the explicit permission of that beneficiary for the purpose of marketing or selling a Medicare Advantage plan, it's likely not compliant in the Lead Start system. Like I said, we spend about 40% of our time on performance and about 40% of our time on compliance.

We are constantly doing audits to see exactly how the call flow works. We're using technology to help us uncover that. And if we see something that we believe violates what's happening, we have a roster of 21 different lead providers that we're using, we knock out that person who's not doing that, that entity that isn't doing it right, and we sub in somebody else for the, for the lead flow, but.

How little, and I talked about the 40% of compliance. I'll talk about the 40% of performance. It's $195 CPA. Again, it's not for everybody to be on their phone all day long selling Medicare, but if you want to have the volume advantage of a call center with the compensation advantages of being an independent agent, we can do that.

For you in an hour, we can bring you that ability to be able to take highly qualified beneficiaries that are brought to you in a compliant fashion. Um, using the Lead Star platform, I. In one hour. 

That's, that's huge. That's huge, man. We could staying compliant. Good results, right? Everybody. There's no gray area.

Yeah, it's black and white. Yeah. And call Rob, don't forget. Call me. He call, call Rob. Um, yeah. And there's one, one more thing. I mean, we've gone through a lot of, a lot of great information today, I think. You know, the, uh, ro the, the rest of year or, or the Roy as, as the industry likes using acronyms, um, you know, with lead generation it's still alive and well still tons of opportunities.

We can still help agents grow their business and, and become successful. So, um, the last thing we wanted to talk about today, which is hot off the press, and, and that is. We are officially announcing the 2025 championship event for Pinnacle Financial Services. Those of you that went to our events last year know they were off the hook.

Great venues last year was MetLife Stadium. We did Nissan Stadium. We did Citizen Bank Park. Right. And Bill, you were there. You, you hung with us at the events. Right. 

Uh, absolutely phenomenal. Not just the venues, not just the ability to interact with people, but the information and the speakers shared. I mean, the, the, the, the best day in in marketing are those days when we have those events.

And, and I'm not gonna steal your thunder, but I am. Extraordinarily excited about this year's coming up because it's in my backyard. 

Yes. Yeah, it's officially announced September, September 18th, Orlando, Florida, the Kia Center, so make sure you reach out and sign up. And Rob, I'm gonna let you. I know it's tough for you, give you, give you this kind of news you gotta give, but how much does it cost for them to attend again?

It's free. Wait, what? 

It's, 

it's free. 

My mom always said free is the way to be. And that's what this 

event is. Yeah. It's free. Just show up. Learn. Network have a good time. We'll probably have a nice cocktail reception at the end. Um, and it's, it's a fun place to be. I hear, I hear Orlando can be fun. There's some things there.

Yeah. Some extracurricular activities you can probably participate in. Um, you know, but it's a good, it's a gonna be a great event. Good time, great location, and, and gonna have a ton of info and, and Bill's gonna be there. I already know this. We talked about it already, so we will have the lead start, uh, team there, um, to be able to answer any questions in person as well.

It's an, and it, and it's, you've, you, you've positioned this perfectly because it is absolutely the best time of year to be visiting Orlando as well. It's not overwhelmingly hot. And if I might say so, all of the kids are back in school 

if. 

If you did wanna go to Disney, if you did want to go to Universal, if you wanted to check out the newly open universal theme park that's gonna be there, it's not gonna be overcrowded, and you're not going to collapse from dehydration because the weather's gonna be great.

But if, if, if, if past is prologue and you didn't get a chance to go to the three events that Pinnacle did. Uh, last season, uh, if it's anything like those events, it is amazingly uplifting. It is amazingly informative and it is amazingly productive. I would encourage everybody to show up and yes, I will absolutely be there for a hundred percent of that event.

Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful. Love it. Well Bill, man, we appreciate all your time today. We know there's a lot going on. Spend, uh, 30 minutes or so with us go through that information. We are gonna make sure your information's available, so if anybody wants to pick your brain, our, our agents and agencies out there, we'll, we'll make sure, um, we get that as well.

But always call us here at Pinnacle and we can also try and help anyway, weekend and uh, always happy to. Yeah, no good stuff man. And that's gonna end our episode for today, but Bill. Thank you so much. Get keep an eye out for your mug. It's on, it's 

on its way. I can't wait. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Robin.

Thank you Pinnacle for everything you do for the agents you serve. 

Thanks man. Thanks Bill. Have a great day. Thank you.