Daily sales & marketing tips for insurance professionals

The maxim ‘dress for success,’ is about as common as ‘the early bird gets the worm.’ (And I would argue both equally relevant in the insurance industry.) But while many take the latter to heart, rising before the sun to get a head start on their daily to-dos, they let their appearance fall to the wayside.

Although it sounds shallow, people respond to well-groomed, attractive individuals. By no means am I suggesting a shopping spree or an extreme makeover, just that each of us pay a little more attention to our appearance, because you can bet everyone else is.

So you need to increase your style IQ? Don’t be too hard on yourself. Some of us have math skills, others excel in culinary pursuits and a few have a sense of style.

Some notes for the fashion-challenged readers.

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That’s a crazy headline, no?

I spotted this story on Digg.com this morning, which notes that the Thames Valley (UK) police have programmed Homer Simpson’s infamous “D’oh!” into their on-board computers. Homer will sound off upon spotting an uninsured driver.

The automatic plate readers also say, “Here’s Johnny!” (à la Jack Nicholson from The Shining) when turning up a stolen car, and Dan Aykroyd’s famous, “People like this are a menace to decent society,” when spotting a car linked to a crime.

Cops say the catch phrases quicken their reaction time.

I’m not totally sure about that, but I’m a fan of anything that makes the work day more interesting.

How many times have you sat through a colleague’s PowerPoint presentation and thought: “Pretty good presentation. It could’ve been a bit drier, though.”

How many times have you met someone and thought: “Seems like a nice enough person, but she should really use more jargon when she talks.”

I think I can speak for all of humanity here: We hate boring presentations–be it a PowerPoint slide show, a personal introduction, a sales pitch or a wooden phone script. We hate stiff, bland, formal language.

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Say you walk into a Mexican restaurant to order lunch. You get to the front of the line and order the chicken tacos, easy on the guac. In turn, they hand you a veggie burrito.

“I didn’t order a burrito,” you would likely say. “I ordered the chicken tacos.”

Instead of amending your order, the employee says, “Yeah, we heard what you said. But the burrito is actually easier for us to make and we earn $.50 more. We’re pretty sure you want the burrito anyway.”

I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and say if this happened to you, you’d be pretty miffed. In fact, you probably wouldn’t be keen on buying anything from that establishment again, regardless of how tasty the veggie burrito was.

And yet, some of you insurance professionals do this to prospects every day: they request one thing; you give them another and call it good.

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In this week’s video, Jeb Foster reveals a flaming email he wrote to the creators of Waterworld in 1995. This and more in the Agent Blog Wrap-Up!

In Windows, ctrl + z is the shortcut for “undo.” For a writer, ctrl + z is your friend. It takes away the pain and anxiety of deleting something you didn’t mean to delete or screwing up your formatting.

Unfortunately, sales and marketing doesn’t come with a ctrl + z command. If you make a mistake with a prospect or client, you just have to grin and bear it. Right?

Wrong.

I’m sure by now we’ve all heard of last week’s JetBlue fiasco, where passengers were stuck on airplanes for upwards of 11 hours. There were numerous other fiascos on other airlines, and yet JetBlue’s is the one we keep hearing about.

Why?

(1) They’ve worked hard–and spent money–to build their brand. A brand which is synonymous with passenger satisfaction.

(2) They’re honest-to-goodness apologetic. And they’re taking actions to rectify the situation.

The latter is something that the marketing team here at InsureMe commended this afternoon. Because it’s not easy to admit when you’ve made a mistake. It is easy to hide behind the steely façade of the corporation and just continue on with life. But that’s certainly no way to garner consumer loyalty.

We all make mistakes. It’s part of being human. So when it’s your turn to face the music, do so with honesty and humility. And go the extra mile to make it up to your client.

See how JetBlue is righting the wrong

Question: How many times has this happened to you? Either intentionally or unintentionally you write and send an e-mail that you later regret. Really regret. Maybe you were a little steamed when you wrote it. Perhaps you made some caustic remarks or, worse, really lit into someone.

I recently learned that there is a name for such episodes. It’s called flaming, and according to a recent story in the Times (”First, Think Later: New Clues to E-Mail Misbehavior”), such behavior is a relatively recent phenomenon.

“Flaming has a technical name, the ‘online disinhibition effect,’ which psychologists apply to the many ways people behave with less restraint in cyberspace.”

Like alcohol, the web can lower our inhibitions. Much of the time it is for the better–many people who are shy in the flesh are relaxed and outgoing when they’re online. Sometimes, though, lowered inhibitions can result in lost opportunities, clients and friends.

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The easiest way to define customer service may be by what it’s not.

 It’s not getting transferred multiple times, only to repeat your issue with each new rep.
 It’s not dealing with smugness or ignorance.
 And it’s definitely not being treated like a pest instead of a customer.

Good customer service is hard to come by, maybe because it is hard to provide. Dealing with people is no easy task, but is a large part of your job as an agent and apropos Megan’s recent post, an excellent addition to any USP.

In Seth Godin’s post about customer service, he sites technology as the culprit making it harder to satisfy customers because the internet has taught us to demand everything immediately and cheaply.

So some tips to satisfy the most demanding prospects.

Fix their problems…with a smile.

Through your customer service efforts, you can make your customers into fans and receive such rave reviews that prospecting becomes obsolete. They will do the work for you.

The best time to really wow a prospect is when they’re unhappy. Although, it’s unfortunate when a customer becomes upset with something you’ve done, you can use the situation to you advantage. When you fix a customer’s problem quickly, efficiently, and amiably you have the opportunity to earn something no amount of advertising or cold-calling can beget–their loyalty.

Don’t take it personally.

Sometimes if you step outside yourself, serving your customers becomes easier. In his post on customer service, Joel suggests practicing puppetry. Basically, if you don’t take anything personally, you will likely remain calm, which in turn diffuses the customer’s anger or frustration. Even if you are dealing with an annoying customer, employing this strategy might help you keep your cool.

Make them feel special.

Show your customer’s tricks to save a little cash on their premiums. Even if the savings don’t amount to much, you let them behind the curtain or past that velvet rope and made them feel special, something many people rarely experience. Maybe you can’t offer any savings, but remembering their name, their kids’ hobbies or the fact that they recently took a vacation has the same effect.

Cusomer service is perhaps the simplest, albeit most difficult, way to stand apart from the rest.

Last week, Landing The Deal gave a nice recap of an old Seth Godin post on being remarkable in sales.

In a list of 10 tips for setting yourself apart from other people in your sales space, this one was my favorite:

What’s fashionable soon becomes unfashionable. While you might be remarkable for a time, if you don’t reinvest and reinvent, you won’t be for long. Instead of resting on your laurels, you must commit to being remarkable again quite soon.

I think this is especially fitting for the insurance industry, which tends to be slow to change. But today’s consumer moves fast–it’s important to be nimble so that you can stay ahead of the pack.

It also brought to mind a quote from this post on Noah Brier’s blog:

“I guess the bottom line [...] is that if you don’t cannibalize your business, someone else will.”

No, we’re not referring to the 80s classic, Risky Business. The unique selling proposition is a suggested sales technique from Small Business CEO, a blog aimed at helping small businesses flourish.

One of the key things that must be identified for effective marketing and sales is your USP or Unique Selling Proposition.

The USP is the thing that sets you, your products and services or your business apart from every other competitor in a favorable way.

The USP is something our creative marketing team has been spending a lot of time on as we prepare materials for prospective agents. We’ve scheduled meetings, had impromptu brainstorms and concocted lists to determine our USP. Because there are a handful of online lead aggregators in our sandbox. Our USP is our edge, so to speak. Therefore, the idea is to find the USP that appeals to our audience–and hammer that point home.

Small Business CEO blogger Steve Rucinski makes a couple suggestions for productive hammering.

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