Daily sales & marketing tips for insurance professionals

According to this news segment, kindergartners laugh a few hundred times throughout the course of a regular day (that’s a few hundred more than most adults). Laughter, as we noted here last week, is an incredible competitive advantage.

The other reason you should take cues from kindergartners? They’re not afraid to fail. Consider this anecdote from econo-blogger Megan McArdle:

I saw a great speech a little while back by the guy who’s in charge of designing new products at Palm. He talked about an exercise that he does with various groups, where he gives them pieces of spaghetti and some tape and tells them to build the tallest structure they can.
Engineers do all right; MBAs do the worst, because they waste time arguing about who will be in charge. But the best performing group? Kindergarteners. Little kids don’t try to design a structure. They just keep trying things, and stick with anything that works. Their structures certainly didn’t look as elegant as the neat frames designed by the engineers. But they did the job, which is to be as tall as possible.

Without quite realizing it, we become more risk averse as we age, more concerned with process, safety and appearances than results. A little effort and you can halt the trend–and perhaps reverse it.

Next on the Agent Blog: The Wisdom of Nap Time.

Stay tuned.

Who doesn’t like to stumble upon a sale, but the rising trend documented by several publications, which coincidentally provide their content for free online, is a tendency for companies to not discount their goods and services, but to give them away at no cost–a seemingly ridiculous business model that actually works.

Trendwatching.com discusses some of the some of the things fueling free love.
• The battle for consumer attention. In a world where consumers are bogged down with advertising hi jinx and marketing schemes, sometimes you can’t even give it away
• The internet and it’s ability to create, copy and distribute easily and cheaply
• Consumer to consumer markets, which allow consumers to swap not spend, making transactions cash-neutral
• An emerging recycling culture that takes a reuse mentality

One way the free marketplace affects insurance agents is by making it easy and free for consumers to compare the price of insurance polices online. Gone are the days when it took hours for insurance shoppers to make calls and compare quotes; it now happens in a mere moment. And if you aren’t in this free marketplace, which thrives online, you will miss out.

Check out this link that explains how you can manipulate the internet to build your online presence.

…Read the rest of this entry »

I have a case of bloggers’ block, so in lieu of a post, I’ve decided to link to several other blogger’s posts that I found interesting, helpful or inspiring this week.

Guy Kawasaki’s interesting take on sucking up.

Time’s 10 ideas that are hanging the world: the end of customer service.

From Seth Godin’s blog. Learn about all those things you don’t understand. Do it now.

Why the Wright Brothers’ were the incarnation of the entrepreneurial spirit

Enjoy!

It’s no coincidence that Hillary Clinton’s improved polling numbers came after appearances on SNL and the Daily Show.

She showed an unscripted and irreverent side that had hitherto been hidden from public view, and people loved it. Moreover, she displayed–gasp!–some self-deprecating humor, a kind that’s typically not found in electoral politics.

In short, funny works, but not only in politics. Humor works because it

Humanizes
Signals intelligence and leadership
Puts people at ease

Still not sold? OK, if you’re a dollars and cents person, consider that humor and levity drive productivity and creativity. During an interview with Adrian Gostick, author of “The Levity Effect: Why it Pays to Lighten Up,” CNBC presented the following statistics:

81 percent of employees at Fortune’s Best 100 Companies to Work For have fun a work.
Only 62 percent of employees at other companies are having fun.
90 percent of employees who say their boss has an “above average” sense of humor want to be at the job a year from now, VS. 78 percent who don’t have funny bosses.
98 percent of CEOs would hire a person with a good sense of humor over someone who lacked levity.

Check out the video and see for yourself.

[Type "funny" into Photos.com, a royalty-free photo source, and you'll get the above fish.]

The internet amazes me daily. When I first started at InsureMe, I poured over lists of keyword phrases that people were typing into Google or Yahoo before arriving at our homepage in order to determine on what keyword phrases we should bid.

I recall thinking this is going to be a sort of new-age societal footprint that future generations will explore to better understand the past–an online archaeological dig. Because using the internet is a somewhat private experience (it’s just you and the machine), people tend to forget that everything is traceable and it’s all being documented by companies that then sell that information to other companies to conduct market research.

Before you become completely paranoid, no one knows or cares what you specifically are looking at on the web, unless it’s illegal. I mean they can find out, but not without some serious reconnaissance; companies are more interested in demographics.

Each time I looked at these lists, I thought about the people sitting in front of their PCs, asking the internet their most personal questions, how to accomplish their goals or where they might find a job. The search terms that appeared on my list were typically related to insurance, as these people ended up on InsureMe’s web site after typing them. However, there were outliers, such as

urine smells like onions
my baby won’t stop crying
how you know if you have cancer
training to make more money

…Read the rest of this entry »

What the (bleep) is going on with our economy?

If this question plagues you, keeps you up at night, and/or tests your otherwise sound understanding of our financial system, you’re not alone, says New York Times economist David Leonhardt (”Can’t Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club,” March 19).

“I’m here to urge you not to feel sheepish,” Leonhardt says. “This may not be entirely comforting, but your confusion is shared by many people who are in the middle of the crisis.”

Yeah, not so comforting. It’s a muddle, for sure, but Leonhardt is one of the few econo-journalists who can make sense of the mess.

Leonhardt sets out to answer this question: “So how is it that a mess concentrated in one part of the mortgage business — subprime loans — has frozen the credit markets, sent stock markets gyrating, caused the collapse of Bear Stearns, left the economy on the brink of the worst recession in a generation and forced the Federal Reserve to take its boldest action since the Depression?”

Answer: Basically, everyone–from Joe Sixpack to Alan Greenspan to Gordon Gekko–jumped on the housing bandwagon with the silly assumption that home prices would continue to soar into the sky indefinitely. With this faulty notion, people–even normally conservative bank executives–exposed themselves to too much risk. Here’s the money quote:

The American home seemed like such a sure bet that a huge portion of the global financial system ended up owning a piece of it. Last summer, many policy makers were hoping that the crisis wouldn’t spread to traditional banks, like Citibank, because they had sold off the underlying mortgages to investors. But it turned out that many banks had also sold complex insurance policies on the mortgage debt. That left them on the hook when homeowners who had taken out a wishful-thinking mortgage could no longer get out of it by flipping their house for a profit.

The traditional banks never fully insulated themselves from the insane amount of risk they took on in lending money to people who had no business borrowing it.

Read the article.

I went to a Nationwide meeting a few weeks back and enjoyed meeting the Nationwide agents and hearing about how they use our leads. They were great at giving feedback and we are doing our best to incorporate their ideas into our offerings.

That said, I also learned quite a bit about how energetic and friendly the agents are. They all worked together to brainstorm how to be more successful, and then enthusiastically honored the agents who had been most successful in 2007. Those successful agents were heading off to exciting, exotic spots, depending on just how much they actually sold during the year. Nice reward, and incentive, to say the least.

They also brought in Billy Riggs as a motivational speaker whom I found fascinating and fun. I guess audiences require quite a bit as this fellow is a magician, comedian and motivational speaker.

He had a hilarious bio, which made us welcome him and ready to listen. I took a note to copy his form for anytime my bio is needed; before he hit the podium I knew I’d want to be friends with him. He also had several jokes at the beginning to set the stage for his presentation:

Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
Why do they put real lemon in cleaners and fake lemon in food?
When farmers break off relationships, do they write John Deere letters?
Why do they call them hemorrhoids, when they could be called asteroids?

After he did several magic tricks, and even more amazing extrasensory, paranormal tricks, he started to motivate us.

What I took away from the presentation was this:

It is difficult to sustain performance at a level greater than your own self image.

In other words, we are our worst inhibitors.You are probably much more capable than you give yourself credit for. More than that, you probably are able to contribute significantly to your peers and in your work environment. But we all sell ourselves short. We deal with feelings of inadequacy, feelings others are smarter, more capable, better at the job. Don’t do that! Just look around; aren’t you smarter than all those other people? You know you are!

If you feel you need more accolades, check out our ‘daily affirmations’ video.

Keeping a full pipe line involves a lot of no-so-glamorous work behind the scenes prospecting. Here a few tedious tips courtesy of Sales 2.0.

Schedule follow-up calls sooner. If someone is interested in doing business with you, don’t make them wait. Move the process along at a quicker clip than usual for warm prospects.

Take thorough notes. If you are working with several individuals to sell a prospect, the more detailed your notes the easier it is for your coworkers to jump in and wrap it up. People become frustrated and lose trust when they are asked to repeat themselves. Don’t make your colleagues ask questions the prospect has already answered.

Document best practices. It’s amazing how knowing the product and how to answer objections can make the difference in the sale. Have everyone throw in their two cents about what has worked for them and compile a list of best practices, which can be updated as they develop new techniques.

Keep accurate lists of prospects. Maybe you have purchased an outside list, bought leads from a vendor or received referrals. However you acquired the name, it should go directly into your system with an explanation of the prospect’s needs. That way, you never miss an opportunity to sell to these individuals. A name slipping through the cracks is like money falling out of your pocket.

It’s all pretty dull, but prospecting is the backbone of sales success and success can be found in the details.

Sales takes an innate talent–some people just excel without having to put forth too much effort. But the same level sales success is attainable for the less gifted, it just requires more discipline. Most people become frustrated with sales because they haven’t yet established that sales is a scientific process with laws and principles.

The first steep is to identify your product’s features and benefits and pinpoint your target demographic. You cannot begin to sell a product until you have done this.

1. Prospect. Most sales people prospect in more than one way–referrals, cold calling, yellow page ads, and online leads.
2. Interview. Meet your prospects. Figure out their personality type, so you can effectively sell to them.
3. Analyze Needs. Discover what they need from you and determine how you will provide that more efficiently than your competition.
4. Present. You prospect’s personality and needs will determine how you present your products to them.
5. Negotiate. Work with them on price. Have many product packages available so that you can offer your services at several price points.
6. Close. Sales should be buyer-centric. Building trust is the best way to close a prospect.
7. Service and follow up. We discuss this quite a bit. Customer service is often the one thing that can really differentiate you from your competition.

…Read the rest of this entry »

Optimism is an incredible advantage. Look at all the successful people around you and ask yourself: How many are pessimists? Exactly.

The Power of Positive Thinking. The Secret. Whatever you want to call it, it works.

Marketing maharishi Seth Godin took a look around recently and observed high oil prices, corporate bailouts and a mounting financial crisis. His take?

“Opportunity of a lifetime.”

And because Godin sees opportunity, he’s more likely than others to find it. The guy who’s panicking with each dip in the Dow? Research says that he’s less likely to succeed, simply because he doesn’t think he will; he’ll be blind to opportunity because he doesn’t believe it exists.