Daily sales & marketing tips for insurance professionals

Interesting tidbit in the New York Times recently about hurricane-proof homes. Unfortunately I can’t throw you a link to the article [subscription only], but I did find some commentary on the blog, Building Big Easy, with some excerpts from the story.

According to the Times article, home builders are constructing homes that can withstand winds of more than 130 m.p.h., and, when placed on concrete stilts, can avoid most flood water. In addition, new models are becoming a little more attractive that storm-proof homes of the past, thereby making them even more attractive in the eyes of homeowners.

While Building Big Easy author [an architect in New Orleans] has some reservations about the new homes, insurers are bound to love up and coming structures that can better withstand intense storms. Between builders and insurers, perhaps some industry competition will heat up in the South yet…

[Hat tip]: The Insurance Coverage Law Blog

Yesterday I was reading Kim Klaver’s Blog and she posted a really great story that she received from Goals2Go. The story was about a blind man who was sitting on the street with a sign asking for help. A publicist walked by and saw that the blind man had received very little money as a result of his sign so he picked it up, re-wrote it and left.

This is the kicker:

That afternoon the publicist returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins.

The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had rewritten his sign and wanted to know what he had written on it.

The publicist responded: “Nothing that was not true. I just wrote the message a little differently.” He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read: “Today is Spring and I cannot see it.”

Words are so powerful. What’s on your sign?

You can read the full story here.

Interesting tidbit posted on John Winsor’s blog recently:

In a recent study on domestic automotive repair experiences, when someone had a good experience they told 8 people yet when they had a bad experience they told 16.

What are people saying about you?

Wired’s Chris Anderson has an excellent think piece on the emergence of the “peer production era.” The era Anderson describes sounds, at first, like a zany mixture of futurism and Marxism, but he marshals some good evidence to support his argument. Anderson:

From Amazon.com to MySpace to craigslist, the most successful Web companies are building business models based on user-generated content. This is perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of the second-generation Web. The tools of production, from blogging to video-sharing, are fully democratized, and the engine for growth is the spare cycles, talent, and capacity of regular folks, who are, in aggregate, creating a distributed labor force of unprecedented scale.

Lest he be accused of promulgating “’60s-style utopianism,” Anderson affirms that this new iteration of the Information Age is not anti-capitalist. “This isn’t amateurs versus professionals,” he says. “It’s each benefiting the other.”

In essence, the new business model has companies exploiting free labor–in the form of the guy who takes an hour out of his day to write a book review for Amazon or an entry on Wikipedia. In exchange, these companies provide users with “the tools that give voice to millions.”

If, as Anderson suggests, Joe and Jill Six-pack constitute the new engine for growth, what are you doing to harness their energy? Are you giving them a voice?

[Source]: Wired

Sales blog LandingTheDeal has a great bit, by way of Robert Bly, about properly using “bait pieces” like sales literature to get in the door with a prospect. Here’s an excerpt:

Now, I understand the philosophy some sales trainers teach that sending any kind of literature is a waste of time. They tell you to say to the prospect, “I could send you a brochure, but that won’t really explain our service. It would be much better for me to show you in person.”

Why do they want you to say that? Because your chances of closing the sale increase when you can get in front of the prospect.

But if the prospect replies, “I want the brochure (or booklet, CD, white paper, or whatever you offered) first, and then I’ll decide whether I am interested” – for goodness sake, give him what he is asking for! Don’t argue with him.

I’m afraid paraphrasing really won’t do it any justice, so I’m going to send you here to check it out for yourself. Go!

People don’t love and respect Hugh Mcleod for nothing, y’all.

I know insurance sales is full of good old boys from the old school, but times are a-changing. Check out our articles filed under “Tips for Agents” and start crawling out of the box. Adjust now, and you’ll neither burn out nor fade away.

I’m a word nerd. I read and write from the time I get up in the morning until I set my head on my pillow at night. And I get abnormally excited to find the Health Insurance Underwriter (HIU) magazine on my desk each month.

Why? Because every month I find numerous nuggets to either love or loathe, and I also find that many of these articles speak to the larger insurance sales market–not just health insurance agents. Consequently, HIU teaches me something new every month.

Case in point: this morning I read an article called How to Jumpstart Stalled Referrals by Bill Cates. I wasn’t familiar with this stalled referral thing–I thought people either referred you or they didn’t. Wrong!

A close cousin to referral objections is what I call ’stalled referrals’…has this ever happened to you–a client agrees not to keep you a secret…and then does. It’s a common occurence. What can you do?

…Read the rest of this entry »

We received a great comment [in my opinion] from Debby on one of our past posts about GEICO and the recent scrutiny of their underwriting practices. Just to briefly recap, the insurer has been in the spotlight in recent months for using factors like occupation and education level to determine an applicant’s insurance rates. [Read the full post for more.]

Debby checked out our post and responded, saying:

I am a school bus driver; hence in the realm of a lower income job. Even though we are considered to be some of the safest drivers we get no credit for this. We are required to have extensive training, take safe driving courses, and have both P & S endorsements on our licenses. Our rates still reflect the higher bracket due to our lesser income. This is totally unfair. [...]

This is a great point, coupled with a hard-hitting example of how lower-income American’s are getting the raw end of the insurance deal.

So what’s the solution for people like Debby? Do insurance companies need to refine their underwriting guidelines? I’m inclined to say yes, but I want to hear from some industry professionals.

Routines are a necessity in my life. The thought of trying to get through my morning with no schedule seriously frightens me. I wake up at the same time each morning and complete each task required to leave the house at almost the exact same time every day. I find extreme comfort in this.

The same is true for my first fifteen minutes at work. I always arrive at the same time. I take my stuff to my desk, I get coffee, I log in to my computer, I settle in for a day of routines. I often struggle with change so I welcome the predictability and at the same time I find my anxiety level increasing, at least until recently.

…Read the rest of this entry »

Slate ad critic Seth Stevenson has started a prairie fire of blogger chatter with his harsh criticism of the new ads from Apple. Stevenson says the bare-bones ads, which feature a nerdy guy as a stand in for a PC and a young hipster as a stand in for a Mac, are not only “mean-spirited” but will probably turn off any PC users flirting with a switch to Mac.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that many are siding with his judgment of the commercials. Although I hesitate to fully agree with Stevenson’s assertion that the Mac guy comes across as a “smug little twit,” he is slightly annoying. The nerdy PC guy, on the other hand, has a folksy and unassuming charm.

It’s unclear whether Apple is trying to get new converts with these ads or reinforce the image of their stereotypical user as younger, hipper and slightly snobbier than PC folks. Why would they want to reinforce the snobbery factor? To flatter their current customers?

It seems the ads are examples of pitching to your niche. As such, they will probably be successful. But as Megan pointed out in an earlier post,

[Sales] professionals should look at targeting prospects outside of their usual sales niche. It seems to me that complacency might be one of the biggest threats to long-term professional success.

Focusing purely on the wealthy and mercurial 18-34 demographic is tempting, but there are a lot of computer users out there. Does Apple want their business too?

What do you think of the ads?

(Disclosure: I use a PC.)