Update News for June 2015
Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin:
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Changes To Software That Will Help Us
Defeat and Catch Software Pirates -
SUMMER SALE – FREE STUFF!
Sale ENDS June 30th – Don’t Miss Out! -
FREE STUFF for Current Subscribers
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FREE STUFF for New Subscribers and You
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FREE Zip Code Listings
SUPER IMPORTANT! -
Zip Code Listings
Demand Exceeding Supply -
Low Priced Tablets That Run Compulife
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FREE STUFF For Tablet Users
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FREE STUFF For Internet Engine Users
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These topics will be dealt with in more detail throughout this bulletin.
Defeat and Catch Software Pirates
Those using our Windows program will need to do nothing. You will receive the new Windows program with the new data files and you will not experience ANY change. The software change for you will be invisible.
Those using our web quoting option (paying $120 per year; price change coming July 1st; keep reading) have nothing to do. Compulife maintains the engine and date updates for the web quoting option. The change will be invisible for you.
The ONLY people who will have some work to do, are those buying the Internet Engine (paying $960 per year) and running quotes from their own servers. Those engines will need to be updated at the EXACT SAME TIME that we update the data files in the first midmonth update following the July 4th weekend.
DO NOT PLACE THOSE UPDATED RATE FILES ONTO YOUR SERVER until you are also ready to turn on the new internet engine at the same time.
There is NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE for the engine upgrade. It is part of the $960 per year that you already pay for the engine. By the way, internet engine users need to pay attention to the “Summer Sale” at the end of this bulletin. There is a way for you to save on the cost of your engine and there is some important FREE stuff from which you can take advantage. It will make it easy for you to grow your re-sale market during the balance of 2015. Don’t miss these opportunities.
Later in June we will be sending emails to our internet engine users to advise them when the new engine is available.
If you have any problems updating the new engine and data (NOTE: it will be thoroughly tested before it is given to you) then you can simply get the July monthly update again, and NOT GET THE MIDMONTH UPDATE, and update the server and use the old engine. This means that you will have almost an entire month to work through any problems that you have with the upgrade.
Apart from the new engine not working with the old data files, the new engine should be “plug and play” compatible with the engine that you have now.
Sale Ends June 30th
We are going to be doing some VERY aggressive marketing for the rest of 2015 and we are starting off by first giving our existing customers a chance to benefit from a GREAT DEAL. It’s our way of saying thanks. Keep reading. If you miss the deadline there will be no going back. Some people will complain that they missed reading this bulletin. Sorry, no exceptions. This deal is for us to say to those who hear about the specials that we are giving to new customers, that our existing customers were first offered an even better deal.
Some subscribers have been asking if/when we will offer another sale on our software. The last time was for our 30th anniversary. I was planning to do something for the 35th (we are coming up on our 33rd anniversary). I wasn’t planning to do anything for the 33rd, but in retrospect it is very providential that we are now going to celebrate one third of a century in business.
In truth I have decided that if someone else was going to pirate and give away our internet software for free, and compete with us by doing that, then why not Compulife giving away our internet stuff for free? We might as well reward people who pay Compulife, rather than help those who pirate our software.
Before I go further I want to point out that the team here at Compulife think that I have lost my mind. They think I’ve gone nuts. In December, when I dropped our personal use price from $199 to $180 they thought I was crazy, that I should be raising the price. But my philosophy is very simple and unchanged for years. I would rather have a 2,000 customers paying me $200 each, than 200 customer paying me $2,000 each. The lower the price, and the more customers that we have, the more secure I feel and the more secure that we are.
But as something of a concession to the rest of the Compulife team, I did raise the price for the web quotes from $99 to $120 at the beginning of the year. I didn’t really want to do it, but everyone else here at Compulife were sure that I had gone mad and that I was giving stuff away far too cheap. Apparently there are those who question how Compulife can be any good, and be so inexpensive. Those who have been with us for years know that we provide the best quality at very low prices.
But when I found this outfit pirating our software and giving it away for free, I did get mad. I got downright ticked off. I blew a gasket and I’m still steaming. I have worked harder than anyone can imagine for over 32 years to develop this product and service, and I refuse to stand idly by while somebody else takes that software from me, without paying for it, and then competes with me by giving it away for free.
And while we are at it, I think you should be mad too.
The agents that took our software for free (they’re pirates) are competing with you, and those agents didn’t pay a dime for a product that you made possible by buying it through the years. Why should others benefit from the investment that you have made?
So the first thing I am doing is rolling back the price on the web quote option from $120 to $96. That price change will be effective July 1st. Those of you getting invoices for June will still be invoiced for the $120, but if you act and take advantage of the “Summer Sale” that follows, you will be able to get those web quotes for free (keep reading). And I realize that there are some out there who recently paid $120 for web quotes. If you will keep reading there is a simple way for you to get the price difference (reduction) back. You need to keep reading.
The deals that I will talk about in the rest of this bulletin are all about “payback”. It’s about paying back the people who have made our product successful (that’s you, the subscribers who have purchased it), and it’s about paying back the jerks who took what didn’t belong to them. I want to send a loud, clear message that if you take from Compulife without paying for it, we don’t just get mad we get even. I want you to join me, and help me go to war with these pirates who take and don’t give. But not only do I want to get even, my hope is that you will help me get even. And in the process, you can get a little payback for yourself.
So here it goes. You are going to hear the word FREE a lot in this bulletin. Those getting new subscriptions are going to get some software and zip code listings for FREE (more so than usual), and existing customers are going to get some software and zip code listings for FREE (more so than usual).
This is going to be a VERY simple deal/offer. This deal will end June 30th. Don’t miss out.
Buy two years of Compulife and get one of two things completely FREE (your choice):
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- 1. One more year of Compulife for FREE (buy 2 get one free).
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or
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- 2. Two Years of Webquotes FREE (a $192 value; based upon the new July 1st price).
If you use web quotes, you can get those for free. If you don’t use web quotes, then you can get a free year of Compulife. It’s your choice.
Let’s look at some examples of how this works:
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- If you are a
personal use
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- subscriber (paying $180 per year), you can pay Compulife $360 and ADD a total of 36 months (that’s 3 years) to your current subscription, whatever it is. That’s 3 full years, including 3 free zip codes at
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- , for $360. That means your average cost for Compulife just dropped from $15 per month ($180/year) to $10 per month ($120/year). Remember, that includes 3 free zip codes which is a $45 per year value. $120-$45 is only $75 per year for the software.
Or, if you are a personal use subscriber, paying $180 per year, you can pay Compulife $360 and ADD web quotes to that 2 year subscription for 24 months for FREE. That a $192 value (2 X $96; the new price starting July 1st). If you are personal use subscriber, with the web quote option, that’s the better deal.
If you are a standard license subscriber (paying $300 per year), you can pay Compulife $600 and and ADD 36 months (that’s 3 years) to your current subscription, whatever that is. Now that’s 3 full years, including 3 free zip codes at www.term4sale.com, for 3 years. That means your average annual cost for Compulife just dropped from $300 to $200. That also includes 3 free zip codes which is a $45 annual value.
Or, if you are a standard license use subscriber (paying $300 per year), and buying the web quote option ($96 per year), then you can pay Compulife $792 and ADD three full years of Compulife. In the case of those with a standard license and web quote, that INCLUDES adding WEB QUOTES for a year for FREE. All told that is a $396 value, because the Compulife program is $300 and the webquote option is $96 per year (starting July 1st). That drops your average annual cost to $264, which includes the web quote option.
For those who might wonder what Compulife is going to do in the 3rd year for money, let me explain why our pre-paid subscriptions have never been a financial problem for Compulife:
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- First, Compulife does not spend the money that people pay in advance for our service. A 36 month subscription is banked and accounted on a monthly basis over 36 month. If you pay $360 for a two year personal subscription, and we give you a 3rd year for free, then Compulife banks the $360 and we only account $10 per month back into our corporate revenue as it is actually earned. While we will make less profit because of the sale price (assuming that you actually take advantage of it) we do not spend the money and leave ourselves in a financial lurch later. That’s a lesson Bob Senior (my father, RIP) taught me (Bob Junior) 32 years ago, when he took over the bookkeeping duties at Compulife.
Second, a lot of subscribers don’t read our bulletins and most will miss this opportunity. Sorry, there’s not much I can do about that.
Third, a lot of subscribers don’t like to pay ahead. Many agents live paycheck to paycheck and do not have money that they save and invest. Despite the deep discounts and low prices offered by paying ahead, we still get those who want to know if they can pay monthly. Long ago, when we charged $79 per month for software, subscribers could pay monthly. Those days are long gone. If you need time to pay, you should use a credit card.
For those subscribers who do save and invest, and for those who realize that Compulife is a rock solid investment, these discounts are a seriously good deal. Get them while they are hot. You don’t think the stock market is going to keep doing what it’s been doing, do you?
IMPORTANT: The discounts that we are offering above are only for EXISTING subscribers to Compulife. That deal will not be promoted to those who are NOT subscribers. The deal is for existing customers, and the deal is gone on July 1st.
If you introduce a new subscriber to Compulife they will get some FREE STUFF and so will you.
For your referral: FREE Compulife (including web quotes and 3 free zip codes listings) to the end of 2015 (that’s 7 months if you include June, versus the usual 4 months). The sooner the referral gets going, the longer that they will have free software and zip codes.
For you: A FREE zip code listing at www.term4sale.com until the end of 2017. That’s $37.50 value ($1.25 X 30). You need to keep reading for more information about why this is more valuable than just $37.50. The sooner you get the referral started, the longer you will have benefit of your additional free zip codes.
How does this work?
First, you must give us the referral using THIS FORM:
So it is important for you to make the referral and then follow-up with your referral to make sure that they do the tutorial. Remind them that they get Compulife free to the end of the year, which includes 3 free zip code listings at www.term4sale.com. They also get the webquote option for free to the end of the year.
And folks, if the agent won’t take the time to spend 10 minutes to learn to use software that will make them money, then they aren’t worth our time or bother. That’s why we need you to ride herd and get them to do that tutorial.
That may sound harsh, but we have learned, after many years, that if people don’t learn how to use our software (or any software) then they won’t use it. And if you don’t use Compulife, then you won’t realize it will MAKE YOU MONEY. And if Compulife doesn’t make you money, then why buy it? I wouldn’t buy it either.
And those who do use our software, KNOW IT MAKES THEM MONEY.
I like to brag about the fact that the first customer Compulife ever had, is still a Compulife customer today. Richard Gilbert knows who I am talking about. And it isn’t that Mr. Gilbert is generous and benevolent, it’s because Mr. Gilbert has made money from his relationship with Compulife, just as Compulife has.
PERSONAL ASIDE: Dick, can you believe it? 1/3 of a century! There actually was a time when we were young. Many thanks for all your business and support for all these years.
SUPER IMPORTANT!
Bumping zip codes is ONLY allowed in the first week of November. If you purchased a zip code listing that listing is secure to the end of that year. However, you may not be able to renew that listing the following year should that listing get bumped by someone who is in the local area of that zip code and who elects to use that zip code as one of their FREE zip codes.
Once again, bumping can only occur in the first week of November and will only take affect at the beginning of the following year. When you bump a paid listing, we do not renew that listing for the person who previously paid for it. When there is more than one paid listing in a zip code, we bump the newer subscribers first. Those who have been with us the longest have seniority.
IMPORTANT: To ensure our team (Jeremiah and Pat) aren’t driven nuts with this process (one nutty person at Compulife is enough), Compulife will not be accepting new zip code purchases during November and December. This will freeze our current zip code listings to the end of December.
During the first week of November we will process the changes as a result of bumping. We will remove bumped zip codes from subscribers paid listings prior to the invoicing of renewals for 2016. Those who ask to have their free listings moved into those other zip codes will have the other zip codes appear in January, not before.
Further, after the first week of January we will remove those listings that were not renewed (paid) and post the new list to the www.term4sale.com web site. At that point you would be well advised to check the site to see if there are listings that you want, that have now opened up.
That’s why the referral program is SO IMPORTANT. If you can ADD free zip codes to your account, which are then paid to the end of 2017, it means that you can use those additional FREE zip codes, in the first week of November, to bump paid listings. And making referrals to Compulife is the ONLY WAY you can add additional FREE zip code listings.
For example, let’s say that you refer 10 new agents to Compulife, and they all do the tutorial to get their free subscriptions to the end of 2015. You will receive 10 FREE zip code listings to the end of 2017 (a $375 value). For the balance of 2015 you can only select zip codes that are available. You can check to see what is available here:
VERY IMPORTANT: When you come to 2018 you will have the right to keep those zip codes by paying to renew them.
Do you UNDERSTAND the value of this offer?
If it hasn’t hit you by this point, try reading it again. If you still don’t get it, call me (Bob Barney) at (888) 798-3488.
In becoming a part-time sales person for Compulife, for the next couple of months, it means that you can bank some FREE zip codes for 2015/2016/2017. Those zip codes can then lead to more life insurance sales through www.term4sale.com.
And this isn’t that hard. After all, it doesn’t take much of a salesman to give stuff away for FREE.
Demand Exceeding Supply
Therefore, the ability to get more FREE zip codes in your area is really important. It represents the ONLY way that you can get people who buy and renew the codes that they have in your area, moved out of those listings. The time that you take to promote Compulife in the next few weeks can provide you with an enduring benefit with respect to insurance sales.
No doubt some folks who got in the listing game early, and who bought some of the best zip code listings, will be unhappy about this. Our advice for those subscribers is to take advantage of this same special offer and lock down a bunch of zip codes in their own local area, by getting those for free. That saves you money, and that locks down those zip codes. Our goal is to have a STRONG local presence in all the zip code listings. It’s not that buying paid listing outside your immediate area is unwelcome, it’s just more important that we have lots of subscribers able to derive sales from their own local area.
But we still have a problem. Even brand new subscribers who have three free zip codes to place, are finding it tough to get a good zip code listing in their area. Many are already full. They are being told that they will have to wait until November to bump some of the paid listings, assuming that they have become a paying subscriber by that time. They have to settle for what is available until then. For that reason we still need to thin the herd and we will need to make some further changes to paid zip codes listings for 2016.
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- First, for 2016 we will decrease the maximum number of paid zip codes that you can buy from 100 to 90. Those personal use subscribers, who are currently buying 100 zip codes, will have to cut 10 of those zip codes from their 2016 listings at renewal time in November (to take affect in January). Of course some of those cuts may happen anyway, when those using free zip codes bump paid zip codes. The good news is that the price for the first 90 zip codes will remain unchanged at $1.25 per month (times 12;
$15
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- each per year).
Second, we will decrease the maximum number of paid zip codes from 400 to 360 for standard license subscribers. The price for the zip codes over the personal use allotment (91 to 360) will be unchanged at $1.50 per month (times 12; $18 each per year).
The principle in making these changes is to broaden the number of Compulife players on the field. We DO NOT want any one customer capitalizing on the benefits of www.term4sale.com. We prefer that a majority of subscribers derive a benefit from the site, not just a minority. In the meantime we also hope to continue to grow traffic to the site. While we make the slices of the pie thinner, we are trying to make the pie larger. In the end it may mean you have fewer listings but they should still produce the same number of contacts and sales. That’s out goal.
Last month we featured this tablet:
Then one of our customers told us that he bought the HP’s baby brother which is featured here:
The downside is the screen size, which make the 7″ easier to carry but harder to read. Of course I find smart phones harder to read and these are better than those.
But you will recall that we predicted that there would be even bigger screens available for under $200. And they’re already were, we just didn’t know about them. Here’s an example:
From our point of view, the hardware has now caught up to our software.
Personally, I find this funny and ironic. From time to time I am lectured by “techies” who assure us that it’s “all about the cloud”. They like to say that our windows comparison software program is so “yesterday’. And then there’s the same bunch of techies who tell us that we need to move to the web, who then tell us that we should offer aps for phones.
So which is it, aps or cloud?
Here’s why that’s so funny. There are now portable devices (small tablets) that run our full Windows program (which IS an “ap”), and tablets are SUPER CHEAP. If you want to make Compulife portable, and take it with you, there are lots of options. And the neat thing about that is that can use any of the same software that you already use on your regular Windows computer.
But we talked about using a stylus and noted that the stylus must be “capacitive” as most of the new tablets use hard screen technology. Anyway, we bulk purchased a couple of different types of stylus and would be happy to send you one of each if you would be willing to try them with your tablet or phone, providing you promise to let us know which you like better and how they work.
One is a stylus only:
And this month I became convinced a lot of you are going to like using a stylus. I gave my wife a Microsoft Surface for Christmas. Ebay ran a sale and was selling the $449 surface for $199 and I thought we should check that out. Unfortunately it ended up being the RT version of Windows, which was disappointing because that won’t run Compulife. Even so, it’s great for getting emails and surfing the web. The other day I caught her using the tablet with the cheap stylus that we have and I asked her if she liked it. She said she did. And if my wife will try something new and like it, you can be sure we have a winner.
Once again, if you agree that you will try these and email us to tell us what you think of them, we’ll mail one each to you for FREE. Just let us know that you want the pair by sending an email to:
First, if you buy and pay for the internet engine for 2 years in advance, we will give you a 3rd year for free. The deadline to take advantage of the “buy 2 get one free” deal is June 30th.
A typical internet engine user pays $300 + $960 per year ($1,260/year). But if you buy two years, we will give you the 3rd year for free. So for a total of $2,520 you get the entire software package, to run quotes from your own server, for an average of only $840 per year. That’s an average of only $70 per month.
Second, you can now add new web quoting customers to your internet engine, for the balance of 2015, for FREE. That deal is good to the end of 2015.
There are two ways you can do this:
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- 1.
Simply add the customer.
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- You will need to provide us with a quarterly report giving us a total of your subscribers and identify the web page/site where those quotes appear.
2. Have your customer do the Compulife Dare to Compare Challenge. Not only will it not cost you to add that customer for quotes from your server (until the end of 2015), your customer will also get the Windows version of Compulife and the 3 free listings at the www.term4sale.com website, FOR FREE to the end of 2015.
It’s up to you which way you go.
In January of 2016, your web customer or you will need to pay Compulife for a subscription for that user, but by that point you may have grown your volume to qualify for our deepest per unit discounts. Remember, if you have 60 or more sub-users, you can get Compulife for those customers for only $60 per unit.
And if you are at the $60 level, Compulife will now permit you to add additional customers for 6 months for FREE (rather than the regular 4 months subscription in return for doing the tutorial). Call us at (800) 798-3488 or (888) 798-3488 to discuss that further.
And finally, Internet engine subscribers who have achieved the 60 unit pricing level of $60 per year, can now offer their new customers a 6 month FREE subscription to Compulife rather than 4 months. That still requires the customer to do the “Dare to Compare” tutorial.
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